LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



— ©ijjtgrtg^t Jfo* 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/ 1885 



THE HEBREW FEASTS. 



BOOKS BY PROFESSOR GREEN. 



The Argument of the Book of Job Unfolded. i2mo, $1.75. 

" That ancient composition, so marvellous in beauty and so rich in philoso- 
phy, is here treated in a thoroughly analytical manner, and new depths and 
grander proportions of the divine original portrayed. It is^ book to stimulate 
research. " — Methodist Reco7'der. 

Moses and the Prophets. i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 

" It has impressed me as one of the most thorough and conclusive pieces of 
apologetics that has been composed for a long time. The critic confines him- 
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positions in a style that carries conviction." — P?-ofessor W. G. T. Shedd, D.D. 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 
NEW YORK, 



THE NEWTON LECTURES FOR 1885. 



THE HEBREW FEASTS 



IN 



THEIR RELATION TO 



RECENT CRITICAL HYPOTHESES 



CONCERNING 



THE PENTATEUCH. 



BY 

WILLIAM HENRY ^GREEN, 

Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary, 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

530 BROADWAY. 




COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS. 



Edward O. Jenkins' Sons, 
Printers and Stereotypers, 
20 North William St., New York. 



THROUGH the liberality of the Hon. J. Warren 
Merrill, A.M., three courses of lectures upon topics 
selected by the Faculty of the Newton Theological 
Institution have been delivered to the students during 
the last three years by teachers connected with other 
seminaries. In each of the first two courses different 
topics were discussed by several eminent lecturers. 
The series now published is the only full course yet 
given by a single lecturer upon one theme. It is 
hoped that in process of time there will be many 
other volumes of " Newton Lectures " offered to the 
Christian public. 

Alvah Hovey, 
President Newton Theological Institution. 
Newton Centre, Aug. 5; 1885. 



PREFACE. 



The new departure in Old Testament Criticism 
represented by Reuss, Wellhausen and Kuenen rests 
upon the conception that the religious institutions of 
Israel, as these are exhibited in the Pentateuch, are 
not the product of one mind or of one age, but are the 
growth of successive ages ; that the laws in which 
they are enacted, and which have been commonly 
attributed to Moses, are really composite, and are 
divisible into distinct strata, w r hich are referable to 
widely separated periods, and that the growth of 
these institutions can be traced in the laws which or- 
dain them from their primitive simplicity to those 
more complicated forms v/hich they ultimately as- 
sume. And it is further claimed that this result, 
which is reached by an analysis of the laws, is veri- 
fied by the statements of the history, provided the 
history itself is first subjected to proper critical treat- 
ment, and its earlier and later elements are correctly 
discriminated. Wellhausen's " Prolegomena to the 
History of Israel/' which has recently been issued in 
an English dress, is a most elaborate attempt to es- 
tablish his revolutionary ideas by appeals to the leg- 
islation and the history in regard to the Place of 
Worship, the Sacrifices, the Sacred Feasts, and the 
Priesthood, The purpose of these lectures, delivered 

(3) 



4 



PREFACE. 



at Newton Theological Institution at the request of 
its honored Faculty, and now published at their in- 
stance, is to test this critical hypothesis by an exami- 
nation of the Hebrew Feasts. Two reasons led to the 
selection of this point for more particular discussion. 
First, the Feasts are alleged to be one of its main 
props, and to afford the clearest proof that the various 
Pentateuchal laws belong to different eras and repre- 
sent distinct stages in the religious life of the people. 
And secondly, while the critical views respecting the 
Sanctuary, the Sacrifices, and the Priesthood have 
been vigorously and successfully assailed, proportion- 
ate prominence has not been given by the opponents 
of the hypothesis to the matter of the Feasts. 

I take this opportunity to return my acknowledg- 
ments to the generous friend of sacred learning who 
made provision for these lectures, and to the Faculty 
of the institution, who honored me by the appoint- 
ment to deliver them, and whose kindly courtesies 
made my brief stay in Newton most delightful. 

W. Henry Green. 

Princeton, N. J., August 8, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 



I. THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS IN GENERAL. 

Page ii. 

Its originators, n ; the previous Literary Analysis, its grounds and 
results, 12 ; its fallacies and defects, 14 ; the new method and its 
proposed test, 16 ; the three Codes, 17 ; their characteristics and 
the periods to which they are assigned, 18 ; variance with Scrip- 
tural statements, 27 ; causes of its popularity, 28 ; the Codes do 
not belong to distinct periods, 30 ; their differences otherwise ac- 
counted for, 33 ; alleged correspondence with separate periods 
unfounded, 34 ; other falsities and fallacies, 38 ; not a mere ques- 
tion of order, but one of vital consequence, 40. 

it THE HISTORY OF OPINION RESPECTING THE 
HEBREW FEASTS. 

Page 45. 

The several feast laws, 45, form one complete and consistent 
scheme, 46 ; not an accidental conglomerate, 50 ; judgment of 
Ewald, 50; alleged discrepancies, 51; views of Rationalists, De 
Wette, 52; Comparative Religion, Christian Fathers, Maimonides, 
Marsham, Spencer, 55 ; Witsius, 57 ; F. C. Baur, 58 ; Literary 
Criticism, 61 ; Gramberg, 63 ; Von Bohlen, 65 ; Stahelin, 66 ; 
Hitzig, 67 ; Bertheau, 68 ; Ewald, 69 ; Von Lengerke, Hupfeld, 
72 ; Knobel, 75 ; Dillmann, 77 ; Archaeology, De Wette, Winer, 
79 ; Symbolism, Bahr, 79 ; result of this inquiry, 80. 

III. THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CHAPTERS 12, 13. 
Page 83. 

Critical assertions, 83 ; preliminary observations, 85 ; the narrative 
in Exodus the key of the whole position, 87 ; Eichhorn, Dillmann, 

(5) 



/ 



6 CONTENTS. 

89 ; Vater, Gramberg, 90 ; George, Stthelin, Vatke, 92 ; diversity 
in regard to 12 : 24-27, 95 ; Noldeke, Kayser, 98 ; Wellhausen, 
Dillmann, 99 ; the partition factitious, 100 ; alleged inconsisten- 
cies in the laws of these chapters, 103 ; or between the laws and 
the narrative, 107; or in the narrative itself, no; alleged want 
of connection, 114; repetitions, 118. 

IV. THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CHAPTERS 12, 13. 

{Continued.) 
Page 125. 

Objections from diction and style,. 125 ; preliminary remarks, 126 ; 
alleged criteria of the Elohist and Jehovist, 127 ; legal phrases, 
131 ; other Elohistic words and expressions, 133 ; month Abib, 
142 ; Jehovistic expressions, 144 ; verdict of Graf, 148 ; argu- 
ment from the substantial agreement of critics, 148 ; the narra- 
tive in Exodus a credible and true history, 155 ; objections an- 
swered, 159. 

V. THE FEAST LAWS AND THE PASSOVER. 
Page 165. 

What laws are referred respectively to the Jehovist, Elohist and 
Deuteronomist, 165 ; relation of Ex. 23 and 34, 166 ; Lev. 23 in 
harmony with and related to the preceding, 171 ; Num. 28, 29, 
177 ; Num. 9 and Deut. 16, 178 ; alleged development of the 
Passover, combination with the feast of Unleavened Bread, 180 ; 
change from agricultural to historical, 186 ; Passover not derived 
from offering of firstlings, 190 ; Unleavened Bread not a harvest 
feast, 195 ; difficulty in regard to first-fruits, 202. 

VI. THE PASSOVER.— {Continued) 
Page 205. 

Time of the feast, 205 ; Hitzig's notion, 206 ; change from unde- 
fined period to a fixed day, 208 ; prolongation of the term, 
George and Wellhausen, 210 ; Deut. 16 : 7, 214 ; changes in the 
ritual, 217 ; roasting the flesh, 218 ; public substituted for private 
sacrifices, 219 ; place of celebration, 221 ; no diversity in the 
laws, 223 ; the history, 224 ; the prophets, 225 ; Josiah's Pass- 
over, 228 ; no development discoverable, 231 ; Ezekiel, 233 ; 
conclusion, 238. 



CONTENTS. 



7 



VII. THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 
Page 243. 

Its names, 243 ; Wellhausen on Ex. 34 : 22, 244 ; Hitzig's view, 245; 
duration of the feast, 247 ; septenary cycle, 247 ; Ewald's 
scheme, 248 ; liable to objections, 250 ; Hupf eld's view, 253 ; im- 
proved by Riehm, 256 ; development claimed, 256 ; no added 
historical association, 257 ; no change in time, 258 ; " the mor- 
row after the Sabbath," George, 260 ; Hitzig, 264 ; Kayser, 
Knobel, Kurtz, 265 ; Wellhausen, Dillmann, 266 ; the traditional 
view correct, 267 ; Kliefoth, Hupfeld, 270 ; no change in dura- 
tion, 271 ; ritual, 272 ; or place of observance, 273 ; silence of 
the history, 273 ; George's confession, 275. 

VIII. THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 
Page 279. 

Its design, 279 ; culmination of the festal series, 280 ; oftenest 
mentioned in the history, 281 ; alleged development, 282 ; in 
character and design, 284 ; in its time and duration, 286 ; the 
Atsereth, 291 ; mode of observance, 292 ; critical analysis of 
Lev. 23, Wellhausen, Kayser, 293 ; Reuss, 294 ; Dillmann, unity 
of the chapter, 295 ; Wellhausen's assertion of interpolations, 
296 ; Neh. 8 : 15, 17, 300 ; from individual to national sacrifices, 
302 ; the latter do not chill devotion, nor engender formality, 303 ; 
from local sanctuaries to one central place of worship, 305 ; Well- 
hausen's treatment of the history, 306 ; Shiloh, 308 ; Solomon's 
Temple, 309 ; high places, 312 ; Bethel, 313 ; only one pilgrimage 
feast in early times, 314 ; the Psalms know but one sanctuary, 
315 ; the Prophets, 316 ; evasions, 316 ; patriarchal narratives, 
318 ; the ark, 319 ; fallacy of the circle, 321. 



I. 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS 
IN GENERAL. 



THE HEBREW FEASTS. 



I. 

THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS IN 
GENERAL. 

IT was in 1866 (just nineteen years ago) that Karl 
Heinrich Graf published his now famous treatise 
on the " Historical Books of the Old Testament. 
From this properly dates the hypothesis of the post- 
exilic origin of the Pentateuch, which has of late 
attracted so much attention, as further elaborated 
by Kuenen, Kayser, and others, and especially by 
Julius Wellhausen, who is now the acknowledged 
leader of the school. A like view had been pro- 
pounded by Vatke in his " Religion of the Old Tes- 
tament/' and by George in his " Older Jewish Feasts" 
in 1835 ; and it is also claimed by Prof. Reuss, of 
Strassburg, that he had broached the same in his 
lectures since 1833; but at that time it gained no 
adherents, and was universally regarded as extrava- 
gant and paradoxical. 

The way had been prepared for the new hypothesis 
by the literary analysis which had previously been 
undertaken of the Pentateuch. This took its rise 
from the suggestion that the remarkable alternation 

(11) 



12 THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



of divine names in successive sections in the book of 
Genesis is referable to distinct writers, each of whom 
was characterized by the constant or predominant use 
of one favorite term for God. It was hence assumed 
that Genesis was originally compiled from two or 
more independent treatises, into which it might again 
by the application of critical rules be freshly decom- 
posed. And the same process was further carried 
with more or less success through the entire Penta- 
teuch and even beyond it. This hypothesis was sup- 
posed to find abundant confirmation in the alleged 
fact that when the treatises now blended in the Pen- 
tateuch were properly sundered, they were found to 
bear all the marks of separate authorship, each being 
in a measure complete in itself, each having its own 
peculiar diction and style, its plan and purpose, its 
range of ideas and conception of the history and of 
the various actors in it, and betraying more or less 
distinctly the circumstances and the tendencies under 
which it was composed. The microscopic com- 
parisons which were instituted between these newly 
discovered treatises, brought to light the most as- 
tounding and pervading divergences between them, 
discrepant accounts of the same transaction, variant 
representations of the life and manners and partic- 
ularly of the religious usages of the same periods 
and the same men, so that it was plain that they had 
severally followed quite diverse traditions. The final 
Redactor, to whom the Pentateuch owes its present 
form, had evidently sought to harmonize his conflict- 
ing sources and to cover up their disagreements ; but 
the critical process by removing his late additions 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



13 



left these original treatises in bald and sharp antago- 
nism and revealed the underlying discordance in what 
seems to the ordinary reader a continuous and con- 
sistent narrative. 

Conclusions were hence drawn unfavorable to the 
truthfulness and accuracy of one or other of these 
primary sources and perhaps of both ; until the Pen- 
tateuch, from being a homogeneous record of events 
and institutions accredited by the authority and in- 
spiration of Moses, was reduced to a compilation, by 
no one knows w r ho, of legends gathered from diverse 
and contradictory sources originating no one knows 
how. The extent to which this destructive process 
was carried, varied with the taste or fancy of the 
critic. In general the work of demolition was car- 
ried on with an unsparing hand. And such of 
the divisive critics as were most disposed to rever- 
ence the Pentateuch and to defend its sacredness and 
its truth found the ground slipping away beneath 
their feet in spite of their utmost endeavors. The 
hypothesis proved even to the soundest and best of 
its adherents a steep incline down which they inevi- 
tably slid, destitute of any firm support, to lower and 
still lower views of this portion at least of God's in- 
spired word. 

The several ages of the various documents, from 
w 7 hich it was held that the Pentateuch had been made 
up, were eagerly discussed. Conjectures ranged ad 
libittun through the centuries without reaching any 
clear or well-sustained result. But amid all diversities 
on other points it was generally agreed that Deuter- 
onomy was the capping stone of the Pentateuchal 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



edifice and that it must have been added at or before 
the time when " the book of the law " was found in 
the temple in the reign of Josiah. 

Such in brief was the state of things in the critical 
world, when the new hypothesis of Reuss, Graf and 
Wellhausen appeared upon the scene. Symptoms of 
weariness and discontent had begun to manifest them- 
selves at the dreary monotony of a literary criticism 
with its infinitesimal and subtle distinctions, which 
assumed to settle all questions of style and author- 
ship by the mechanical application of the rule and 
the compass, which paraded its long drawn out lists 
of words and phrases the use of any one of which in- 
fallibly determined the author not merely of para- 
graphs or sections, but of single sentences, clauses and 
even words, which may thus be torn out of their con- 
nection and assigned to some foreign context and in 
a sense quite different from that which they must bear, 
where they actually appear. The arbitrary character of 
the whole proceeding was apparent ; and no less that 
the assumed diversities of style were largely fictitious. 
That the poetic words should belong to that docu- 
ment to which the poetic passages were regularly as- 
signed ; that given words and phrases should not 
appear in passages in which there is no occasion for 
their employment ; that different expressions should 
be used in relation to the same thing in different con- 
nections where the shade of thought to be conveyed 
is varied ; that classes of words which are akin in 
thought or usage should be regularly found in com- 
bination ; that a partition conducted on the assump- 
tion that certain words and phrases characterize one 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



15 



writer and accordingly all sections, paragraphs or sen- 
tences in which they appear must be assigned to him, 
while those containing certain other words and phrases 
must, with like regularity, be assigned to the other 
writer, should result in precisely the division which 
the critic has undertaken to make ; — -all this surely is 
not surprising, and requires no such extraordinary 
hypothesis to account for it, as the critics would have 
us suppose. For with all the appearance of pains- 
taking and scientific caution and rigorous accuracy 
with which their reasoning is conducted, the impos- 
ing accumulation of details adduced in support of 
diversity of authorship is to a great extent entirely 
irrelevant, and of no force whatever for the purpose 
for which it is urged. The indefinite multiplication 
of airy nothings does not amount to anything sub- 
stantial after all. We may be excused if we hesitate 
to commit ourselves without reserve to the guidance 
of those whose arguments are so often unreliable, or 
to confide implicitly in the strength and durability of 
a structure built so largely of hay and stubble. 

A further difficulty with the literary criticism of 
the Pentateuch was the absence of any external cri- 
terion by which to test the truth and accuracy of its 
results. Its text was parcelled among the various 
writers who were said to have had a share in its com- 
position, and confident assertions were made as to 
the period when these writers lived and the principles 
by which they were actuated. But there was no 
trace whatever of their existence apart from the lit- 
erary phenomena of the Pentateuch itself, upon which 
all the argumentation of the critics was based. There 



1 6 THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



was no extraneous proof to establish the objective re- 
ality of the critics' conclusions or to do away with the 
suspicion that they may only have been building 
castles in the air. 

The new hypothesis was skilfully framed to supply 
these deficiencies in its predecessor. In the first 
place it is based upon a different method ; and 
secondly, it offers an external test of the correctness 
of its results. Its method is to trace the growth of 
laws and institutions. The principle upon which it 
is based is that of development, which is founded in 
the nature of man and must have had the same ap- 
plication in Israel as among other nations. The 
simpler and more natural form must have preceded 
the more complex and recondite. Different enact- 
ments relating to the same subject belong to distinct 
periods of time and are to be arranged in the order 
of their advancement from small beginnings to more 
fully developed forms. The correctness of the result 
is to be tested by an appeal to history. The suc- 
cessive stages of the institutions of Israel, as these 
can be traced in the Pentateuchal laws, can be recog- 
nized afresh in the course of their history. They are, 
it is claimed, in precise correspondence with what the 
historians and the prophets show did actually exist 
at different periods among the people. The conclu- 
sions deduced from the legislation find thus their 
voucher in the history ; and the date of any given 
portion of the legislation is determined by its coin- 
cidence with the state of things at some known 
epoch. 

The so-called Mosaic law according to Wellhausen 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



forms the starting-point for the history of modern 
Judaism, but not of ancient Israel. It has been in- 
vested with undisputed authority since the Baby- 
lonish exile ; but the entire history prior to that is 
not only at variance with its most express and solemn 
provisions, but is such as to render it evident that it 
was altogether unknown. There are three clearly ' 
distinguishable bodies of law in the Pentateuch. The 
first is in Exodus, ch. 20-24, and is technically called the 
Book of the Covenant. The second, to which Well- 
hausen gives the name of the Priest Code, embraces 
the subsequent portion of Exodus, ch. 25-40, with 
the exception of three chapters (32-34) relating to the 
affair of the golden calf, the whole of Leviticus and 
considerable sections of Numbers, ch. 1-10, 15-19, 
25-36. The third is found in the legislative portion 
of the book of Deuteronomy. These three bodies of 
law, it is affirmed, are not the product of one legis- 
lator or of one age, but took their rise in distinct and 
widely separated periods. 

In the dissection of the Pentateuch, which Well- 
hausen accepts with some modifications from the lit- 
erary critics, the Book of the Covenant belongs to 
what is commonly termed the Jehovist document; 
so called because it, throughout the book of Genesis, 
prevailingly speaks of God by his name Jehovah. 
Wellhausen distinguishes it by the initials JE, to 
indicate its composite character, as including likewise 
the sections which, since Hupfeld, have been attribu- 
ted to the so-called Second Elohist, a writer who uses 
the term Elohim for God in Genesis, but differs ma- 
terially in style from the other sections using the 



1 8 THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 

same term. This document is of a prevailingly his- 
torical character, only inserting this brief code of 
laws at what the writer considers its proper historical 
place ; and another still briefer legislative passage in 
Ex. 34, which seems to be closely related to the Book 
of the Covenant, but which Wellhausen claims was of 
a quite independent origin. According to the nar- 
rative in which they are found, these laws were given 
by God to Moses on the summit of Sinai. But the 
internal evidence is held to be decisive against this. 
It implies that the people for whom it was drawn up 
were engaged in agriculture. It speaks, Ex. 22 : 5, 6, 
of fields and vineyards and standing grain, and pre- 
scribes the restitution to be made in case of damage 
done to either ; ver. 29 requires promptness in offer- 
ing the best of their fruits and the products of their 
presses; 23: 10, 11 directs that their fields should be 
tilled, and the fruits of their vineyards and oliveyards 
should be gathered for six years, but not in the 
seventh ; ver. 16 appoints feasts at harvest and at in- 
gathering, Hence it is inferred that these laws could 
not have been drawn up until Israel was settled in 
Canaan, and there learned the art of agriculture, the 
people having been nomads previously. 

It is further claimed that these laws imply and 
sanction numerous sanctuaries in different parts of the 
land: that the direction, 20:24, 25, to erect an altar 
of earth or stone wherever God should record his 
name can not refer to the brazen altar at the taber- 
nacle or temple, and can not be limited to one single 
spot; and that the same thing is implied 21 : 13, 14 
in God's altar being a refuge for the unintentional 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



manslayer, since one place of refuge would be mani- 
festly insufficient for the whole land ; as well as 22 : 30 
in their giving the firstlings of their cattle to God 
on the eighth day, since the owner of flocks and 
herds could not journey to a distant sanctuary every 
time that a first-born lamb or calf reached its eighth 
day. These regulations, it is said, correspond with 
the state of things exhibited in the books of Judges 
and Samuel, and in the early part of the history of 
the kings. Samuel and others offered sacrifice in 
various parts of the land without censure and appar- 
ently without any knowledge of the existence of a 
law restricting sacrifice to the altar at the tabernacle. 

And with this agree, it is said, the historical por- 
tions of this same Jehovist document, which record 
the offerings made by the patriarchs at various places, 
at Bethel, Beersheba and elsewhere. These are not 
narratives of actual fact, but stories designed to give 
an ancestral and even divine sanction to the sanctu- 
aries of later days. Among the sacred spots resorted 
to in different parts of the land, some had been sanc- 
tuaries before the Israelites occupied Canaan, the 
people continuing to venerate the places which had 
been hallowed by the former inhabitants, only sub- 
stituting the worship of Jehovah for that of Baal ; 
other sanctuaries had been founded by the Israelites 
themselves since the conquest. The distinction be- 
tween the more ancient and the more recent sanctu- 
aries survived in popular remembrance, and stories of 
ancestral worship or of remarkable events in the lives 
of the patriarchs readily grew up in connection with 
the former. 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



The prophets from the days of Hosea discounte- 
nanced the abuses and idolatrous forms which were 
sanctioned or tolerated at these local sanctuaries. 
Hence they could not have been the authors of nar- 
ratives designed to exalt and add lustre to such sanc- 
tuaries. These narratives and the Jehovist document, 
which contains them, must belong to a time when the 
sacred places thus linked with the patriarchs were 
universally reverenced, and before the better disposed 
began to regard them with suspicion or to denounce 
them as sources of corruption. The Book of the 
Covenant, which is incorporated in this document, 
must therefore antedate the period of the proph- 
ets. 

The first of the Pentateuchal codes, then, the Book 
of the Covenant, took its rise some time after the oc- 
cupation of the land of Canaan, and before the time 
of Hosea, Amos and Isaiah. The Deuteronomic 
laws, while adopting and repeating with some modi- 
fications almost everything contained in the code 
already spoken of, in one point present a striking 
contrast with it. They insist with the utmost stren- 
uousness that all the old Canaanitish sanctuaries 
must be destroyed and that all sacrifices must be 
brought to one sole altar at the place which the Lord 
should choose ; and that the people must not con- 
tinue to do " after all the things that we do here this 
day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes," 
Deut. 12:1-8. This, it is claimed, gives evidence 
that these laws constitute a new departure, an attempt 
to reform the existing state of things by abolishing 
the local sanctuaries, to which the people had freely 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



21 



resorted before, and confining the worship of God 
henceforth to a single sanctuary* 

Now just such an attempt to centralize worship 
was made in the reign of Josiah. By the most active 
and resolute measures he put an end to the sanctu- 
aries outside of Jerusalem, and required all worship 
to be strictly limited to the temple there. And he 
did so in confessed obedience to a book of the law 
then recently discovered in the temple. This book 
was the Deuteronomic law, and this event fixes both 
the time when and the circumstances under which 
that law originated. It was the product of the pro- 
phetic party, aided by the priests, in opposition to 
the hitherto prevailing popular religion. The best 
men of the nation had become convinced that wor- 
ship could only be regulated and kept pure by being 
centralized. The local sanctuaries tended to foster 
debased and corrupting forms of worship. All at- 
tempts to purify them had proved unavailing. Hosea 
and Amos unsparingly denounced them, not thereby 
meaning to disapprove of multiplicity of sanctuaries 
in itself considered, but of the abuses which had 
gained lodgment in them. Solomon had built the 
temple at Jerusalem, not with any view of making it 
the sole place of sacrifice, much less under the con- 
straint of any statute, requiring that there should be 
only one sanctuary, but to add splendor to the royal 
residence by rearing a magnificent sanctuary there. 
The worship in high places was not abolished under 
Solomon nor his immediate successors. The recorded 
attempt by Hezekiah to destroy them Wellhausen 
discredits, thinking it much more probable that he 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



simply sought to destroy the images and idolatrous 
symbols which were found in them ; inasmuch as 
Isaiah, who had the largest influence with the king, 
did not oppose the high places as such, but only the 
idolatry which was practiced there, and he regarded 
Jerusalem as sacred not because it contained the 
temple, but because it was the centre and seat of 
Jehovah's empire. 

While, however, the centralization of worship had 
never yet been attempted nor so much as thought 
of, there were influences at work which tended in 
that direction. The temple at the capital was natu- 
rally superior in splendor and celebrity to the sanc- 
tuaries in rural districts and provincial towns. The 
overthrow and exile of the ten tribes, amongst whom 
high places principally abounded, came to be regard- 
ed as a divine declaration against them, while the 
signal protection accorded to Jerusalem and the dis- 
astrous overthrow of Sennacherib gave new 6clat to 
its temple as a specially favored divine abode. The 
prophetic denunciations of the high places, though 
really directed against the corruptions which had 
crept in there and the perverted notions of the merit 
of ritual performances, further lessened their prestige 
and influence. The comparative purity of the wor- 
ship maintained at Jerusalem, though this was not 
free, so Wellhausen thinks, from idolatrous taint, and 
the fact that it was more directly subject to a super- 
vision which could exclude abuses that were liable to 
spring up in remoter or more obscure places, strength- 
ened the attachment of the pious to the temple and 
led them to look with disfavor upon all other sane- 



THE WELLHAUSEN.HYPO THESIS. 



tuaries. While finally the inconsiderable size of the 
kingdom of Judah, which now alone survived, made 
the closing of the local sanctuaries possible as never 
before. Under these circumstances the restriction 
of worship to the temple at Jerusalem was resolved 
upon as a necessary reform and the only method by 
which idolatry could be effectually and permanently 
suppressed. Accordingly with this view the Deuter- 
onomic Code was prepared, and a hearty support given 
by both priests and prophets to its enforcement by 
Josiah. 

The centralization of worship, which was thus the 
great need of that period, is the characteristic fea- 
ture of Deuteronomy, which explains all its devia- 
tions from the antecedent Book of the Covenant. 
Thus, while the early usage had been that every 
animal slain for food must first be offered in sacrifice 
at some sanctuary easily accessible, Deuteronomy 
recognizes the fact that under the new order of things 
it would be impossible to make a pilgrimage to the 
one central sanctuary at Jerusalem, on every such oc- 
casion. Hence formal permission is granted, Deut. 
12 : 15, 21, to slay animals for food in all their gates, 
i. e. y at their homes in any part of the land. By 
closing the local sanctuaries those who had minis- 
tered in them would be deprived of their occupation 
and means of livelihood ; hence the frequent injunc- 
tions in Deuteronomy to befriend the Levites as a 
needy class, 12 : 19, etc., and the explicit direction, 
18 : 6-8, that Levites coming up from any part of the 
land to Jerusalem should have the same right to 
minister there as those connected with the temple. 



24 



THE WELLHA US EN H YPO THESIS. 



Under the old law of the Book of the Covenant, Ex. 
22 : 30, the firstlings of their cattle were offered to 
God on the eighth day: this was practicable when 
there were sanctuaries in every neighborhood. But 
in abolishing these, Deuteronomy makes provision 
for the change in this respect by ordaining, 15 : 19, 20, 
that all firstlings should be offered year by year at 
the sanctuary, and permission was given, 14:23-26, 
to convert them into money at their homes with 
which to purchase an equivalent when they arrive at 
Jerusalem. 

While for reasons such as have been recited, the 
law of Deuteronomy is assigned to the period of 
the struggle for centralization of worship, which cul- 
minated under Josiah, the Levitical law is attributed 
to a still later date, when that struggle had been suc- 
cessfully terminated. Instead of the urgent demand 
to abolish other sanctuaries and restrict worship to 
one only, which is found in Deuteronomy, the Priest 
Code everywhere takes the unity of the altar and of 
the sanctuary for granted, as a settled principle of 
the worship of Jehovah, and one which was univer- 
sally acknowledged. 

The success of the prophetic party under Josiah 
was only temporary. The attachment of the people 
to their ancestral sanctuaries was too strong to be 
uprooted at once. In succeeding reigns the high 
places were again restored and things returned very 
much to the old status. And it is doubtful whether 
the desired change could have been brought about 
had the people remained undisturbed in their own 
land. But the Babylonish exile by removing them 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



25 



from Canaan broke up all their old associations and 
severed them from their holy places until these were 
forgotten and their spell was broken. After the cap- 
tivity Israel as a whole did not return, but those only 
who were most firmly attached to the worship of 
Jehovah and who were willing to be guided by the 
prophets. They were not properly a nation, but a 
religious sect. The small impoverished community 
which settled at or near Jerusalem had but one sanc- 
tuary to which to go. The disposition to worship in 
high places was completely broken and never reap- 
peared. It was to a public assembly of these re- 
turned exiles that Ezra produced the law adapted to 
this state of things, formally read it, and in a solemn 
manner engaged them to obey it. This, then, was the 
origin of the Priest Code, in which the unity of the 
sanctuary is not, as in Deuteronomy, spoken of as an 
innovation upon existing usages, but as though it 
had been established from the beginning and even 
ordained by Moses in the wilderness, the figment of 
a Mosaic tabernacle, being simply the reflex of the 
temple of Solomon transported back to those early 
times. 

As a consequence the whole character of the re- 
ligion of Israel was completely changed. This was 
indeed a necessary result of the centralization aimed 
at in Deuteronomy, though it was a result neither 
foreseen nor desired by the authors of that law. 
Religion now became a matter of public ritual, an 
affair of the priesthood ; from being the spontaneous 
expression of devout feeling in the varied circum- 
stances of life, it was petrified into a monotonous 



26 THE WELLHAUSEN 1/ IPO THESIS. 



round of the most minutely prescribed services. The 
body of the people were remote from the sanctuary 
and only visited it at special and stated times. The 
daily worship was conducted by the priests without 
the participation of the people, whose presence was 
in nowise essential to its efficacy. Sacrifice had for- 
merly been a joyous tribute of gratitude to God for 
personal or domestic gifts or blessings, and a chief 
feature of it was a festive meal partaken of by the 
offerer and his family or friends. But now the indi- 
vidual and the household were sunk in the mass of the 
congregation of Israel. What was peculiar to each, 
gave way to what was common to all. The sacrifice 
instead of being a specific offering on individual oc- 
casion was presented rather on behalf of the whole 
people, and came to be regarded in the sombre light 
of an atonement for sin in which all shared. New 
forms of sacrifice giving special prominence to this 
idea, the sin-offering and the trespass-offering, which 
were never heard of till the time of Ezekiel, are pre- 
scribed in the Priest Code. And the idea culminated 
in the annual day of Atonement, which was altogether 
foreign to the worship of earlier times, and is an in- 
novation later than the time of Ezekiel, and, in fact, 
even than that of Ezra. The sacred incense, which 
none but a priest could offer except at the peril of 
their lives, and the golden altar of incense, of which 
earlier history knows nothing, are also innovations 
of the Priest Code, which is quite in the spirit of the 
later Phariseeism rather than in that of ancient Israel. 

The advocates of this hypothesis are at no pains to 
conceal the fact, which is sufficientlv obvious, that it 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



27 



is quite at variance with the statements of the sacred 
writers. It is expressly declared of the three codes 
that they originated not in distinct and widely sepa- 
rated periods after the settlement in Canaan, but with 
Moses himself before Canaan was entered. The Book 
of the Covenant and the law of Deuteronomy are 
'explicitly stated to have been written by Moses, and 
the Levitical law is said in each of its statutes to have 
been directly communicated by God to him. And 
the precise time and occasion, when these several 
laws were either orally declared or committed to writ- 
ing, are given with circumstantial detail. All this, 
however, is set aside as mere fictitious drapery, though 
it has never been satisfactorily explained how succes- 
sive codes of law could ever have been accepted and 
submitted to as genuine and authoritative enactments 
of Moses, and which had always been in force since 
his day, — and that, too, by the generation in which 
they had been concocted and who must have known 
that they had never been heard of before. 

Then in the various historical books of the Old 
Testament, it is claimed that a distinction is to be 
made between the facts as they really were and the 
coloring which the various writers have given to 
them. Chronicles, which clearly represents the Levit- 
ical law as in operation throughout the whole period 
of the kingdom in Israel, is set aside as altogether 
unreliable, written in the interest of the Priest Code 
and falsifying the history in order to bring it into cor- 
respondence with that Code. The author of Kings, 
though unacquainted, it is said, with the Priest Code, 
lived subsequent to the introduction of the Deuter- 



2 8 THE WELL HA US EN H YPO THESIS. 



onomic law, and has not scrupled to weave in his own 
opinions of its Mosaic origin, which must be disen- 
tangled from his narrative before it can be implicitly 
relied upon. So too the histories of Judges and 
Samuel, though these are paraded as the stronghold 
of the hypothesis, nevertheless have not come down 
to us in their primitive and authentic form. They 
have been revised and retouched, and these additions 
of a later age, imbued with the notions of that period, 
must be eliminated by critical processes before the 
true original shape of the narrative is reached. The 
history of Israel as it has been transmitted to us, has 
been systematically altered and falsified to further 
the ends of the prophetic and priestly party. It must 
be restored to what the modern critical instinct sees 
fit to regard as its true original form, — that is to say, 
to a form which shall correspond with the hypothesis 
to be maintained and from which everything has been 
expunged that opposes it. 

The hypothesis, which has been thus briefly sketched 
in its outline and in the general tenor of the grounds 
adduced to support it, though bold and revolutionary, 
had such an appearance of scientific precision, and 
was so ingeniously shaped in correspondence with 
historical facts, that it gained a sudden popularity. 
Two additional causes likewise contributed to this 
result. In the first place it coincided with the current 
tendency to trace everywhere a gradual development 
by subjecting the religion of Israel to this same law. 
It claims that their institutions were not given to the 
people in completed form at the outset of their his- 
tory, but proceeded from rude and imperfect begin- 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



nings to more and more advanced forms under his- 
torical influences which it undertakes to indicate. 
Their ideas and worship were slowly lifted from the 
level of their idolatrous and polytheistic neighbors to 
the elevation which they reached under the prophets, 
and finally passed into the stage of ritualistic formal- 
ism which characterized the Judaism of a later date. 
This commended it to those who saw in it a plausible 
means of undermining supernatural religion by doing 
away with the need and the reality of miraculous in- 
terventions and prophetic foresight and reducing all 
to a progression explicable on purely natural prin- 
ciples. It proved likewise acceptable to others who 
held fast their religious faith, but who thought that 
they could see the supernatural hand of God still con- 
spicuous though working by other methods and in 
different lines from those which he had previously 
been supposed to pursue. 

The other potent cause of its popularity lay in the 
state of critical opinion when it made its appearance. 
It completely outflanked the positions taken by its 
predecessors, and bore down upon them with irresist- 
ible force. To their uncertain and slenderly sup- 
ported conjectures as to the respective ages of the 
successive strata, which they agreed to distinguish in 
the Pentateuch, it opposed sharply defined conclu- 
sions based on an imposing number of skilfully mar- 
shalled historical data. And it showed how utterly un- 
tenable was the opinion of those who referred Deuter- 
onomy to the time of the later kings on the ground 
that its law restricting sacrifice to a single sanctuary 
could nqt b a Y e existed before the reign of Josiah, or 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



at any rate that of Hezekiah, and yet quietly suffered 
Leviticus, with its recognition of but one sanctuary 
and one altar of sacrifice, to have been in existence 
long before. This position is self-contradictory ; and 
Wellhausen justly directs his well-aimed and unspar- 
ing shafts of ridicule against those who " with blind 
faith hold fast not to the church tradition — there 
would be sense in that — but to a hypothesis a few 
decenniums old, for such is De Wette's discovery that 
Deuteronomy is more recent than the Priest Code." 1 

There are a few general observations, which may 
here be made in relation to this hypothesis of Well- 
hausen in a preliminary way. 

I. The three Pentateuchal codes so called do not 
belong to distinct periods of the people's history. It 
is claimed for them all in the most explicit manner 
that they were delivered immediately by Moses him- 
self. The account given of them is quite simple and 
satisfactory, and there is no sufficient reason for dis- 
crediting it. The Book of the Covenant was drawn 
up at Mount Sinai directly after the proclamation of 
the ten commandments from its summit and prepara- 
tory to the formal ratification of the covenant between 
Jehovah and Israel. That such a relation was estab- 
lished then and there and under the circumstances 
here recorded was the steadfast faith of Israel from 
that time forward ; a faith which is well accredited, 
and is the more remarkable as the scene is altogether 
outside of the territory of Israel, the holy land, to 

1 Wellhausen's " Geschichte Israels," p. 173. This paragraph is 
dropped in the second edition, entitled 1 ' Prolegomena zur Ge- 
schichte Israels," 1883. 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



which, as the critics tell us, Jehovah and his worship 
were so strictly bound. No possible reason can be 
given why this most sacred transaction, which lay at 
the basis of the entire history and worship of Israel, 
should have been referred to this remote point in the 
desert, away from the sacred soil of Canaan, away 
from every patriarchal association, away from every 
spot that was venerated in the past or that was hal- 
lowed or resorted to in the present, unless that was 
the place where it actually occurred. That laws first 
issued in Jehovah's name in Canaan should be at- 
tributed to this mountain in the wilderness, with 
which Jehovah had no special connection before or 
since, is inconceivable. The sublime miracles attend- 
ing the promulgation of the law are surely no reason 
for disputing the truth of the record ; for they were 
certainly in place if miracles ever were. Moses, trained 
in the wisdom of Egypt, was plainly competent to 
the task of framing this simple body of statutes, 
which was largely intended in the first instance for 
the guidance of the judges who had recently been 
appointed to assist Moses in the settlement of con- 
troversies arising among the people. And as they 
expected shortly to take possession of Canaan, these 
laws naturally contemplated not only the immediate 
present, but the proximate future when they would 
be the owners of fields and vineyards and be engaged 
in agricultural pursuits. 

After the covenant with Jehovah had been duly 
ratified, provision was next made for the maintenance 
of this relation by instituting ordinances of worship. 
A new body of regulations was accordingly demanded 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



for this specific purpose, establishing a sanctuary, a 
priesthood, a ritual and sacred seasons. This was 
done in the Levitical law or the so-called Priest Code, 
which was mainly drawn up during the year that the 
people remained encamped at Sinai, and then added 
to from time to time during the subsequent journey- 
ing in the wilderness. The particularity and minute- 
ness of its prescriptions need not surprise any one 
who recalls the numerous petty details with which 
the ritual of ancient Egypt was burdened. 

Finally, when Israel had reached the borders of the 
promised land, and their great leader knew that he 
must die, he delivered those impressive farewell dis- 
courses which are found in the book of Deuteronomy, 
exhorting them in the most tender and earnest terms 
to adhere faithfully to the Lord's service and to obey 
his laws. And he takes this opportunity to recapitu- 
late them so far as was needed for the guidance of 
the people, with such modifications as were suggested 
by the experience of forty years and the altered cir- 
cumstances of Israel, who were now to enter at once 
upon the inheritance promised to their fathers. 

Each of these bodies of law has thus its distinct 
occasion and separate purpose, and each is appro- 
priate to the circumstances which called it forth. 
They are throughout cast in the mould of the Mosaic 
age and of the abode in the wilderness, and their 
whole style and character are as different as possible 
from that which they must have borne if they had 
been produced at any subsequent period. Much of 
the contents, particularly of Deuteronomy and of the 
Levitical law, would be not only superfluous, but pre- 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



posterous, if the former was produced in the time of 
Josiah and the latter in that of Ezra. 

2. The differences between these codes are such as 
arise naturally from the difference of occasion and 
purpose already referred to, and do not by any means 
justify the assumption that they did not all emanate 
from one authority and belong to the same period of 
time. Most of the discrepancies alleged are purely 
imaginary, and are created by false interpretations of 
the critics themselves. And while there are a few 
particulars which it is difficult to harmonize, these 
are not more than might be expected in institutions 
so ancient, so foreign to our usages, and in regard to 
which we are so imperfectly informed. The asserted 
difference in regard to the unity of the sanctuary, 
which is the main prop of the entire hypothesis, posi- 
tively does not exist. The Book of the Covenant 
does not sanction a plurality of altars : on the con- 
trary it contemplates but one altar, Ex. 21 : 14, and 
one house of God, 23 : 19. It contains, 20 : 24 f., the 
most general law for the Israelitish altar, and one design- 
ed to cover all possible cases ; and it is of course less ex- 
plicit than the succeeding codes to which it was pre- 
liminary. It does not restrict the altar to any single 
locality, for Israel was marching through the wilder- 
ness and must offer worship wherever they encamped. 
It does not limit sacrifice to the tabernacle, for this 
was not yet built, and no direction had yet been given 
for its construction. It prescribes that an altar of 
earth or stone should be erected, not in every place 
taken at random, nor wherever they might think 
proper to rear an altar, but wherever God should re- 
3 



THE WELL HA USEN HYPO THESIS. 



cord his name, or make his name to be remembered 
by any disclosure or manifestation of himself. After 
the erection of the tabernacle all such manifestations 
of God were ordinarily confined to it; so that this 
then became coincident with the requirement of the 
Levitical law that all sacrifices must be brought to 
the tabernacle, wherever that might be in their migra- 
tions. And when the time arrived, to which Deuter- 
onomy looks forward, \2\q{., when Israel should 
come to the inheritance which the LORD was giving 
them, and he should give them rest from all their en- 
emies round about, then the migrations of Israel and 
of the house of God established in the midst of them 
would terminate, and the injunction to build an altar 
where God would record his name becomes identical 
in thought, and closely related even in the form of 
expression, with the phrase so constantly employed 
in Deuteronomy, "the place which Jehovah shall 
choose to place his name there," 12 : 5. At the same 
time the fact that Deuteronomy itself directs, 27 : 5,6, 
the erection of an altar of stone upon Ebal in terms 
manifestly drawn from the earlier law in Exodus, 
20 : 25, shows that extraordinary altars having imme- 
diate divine sanction were no violation of that unity 
of the sanctuary, upon which this book so strenuously 
insists. There is accordingly the most thorough 
agreement of the three codes in this matter, both in 
principle and in its application ; and no such diver- 
gence, as this most extraordinary hypothesis assumes, 
is to be found. 

3. The separate correspondence of the three codes 
severally with three distinct periods of the history is 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



likewise a chimera. It is utterly at variance with the 
testimony of every witness that we are able to sum- 
mon, to maintain that the unity of the altar was not 
an accepted part of the religion of Israel until the 
reign of Josiah. The book of Joshua explicitly informs 
us that it belonged both to their creed and to their 
practice at the time of their first settlement in Canaan. 
When Joshua had completed the conquest of the land 
the whole congregation of the children of Israel assem- 
bled together at Shiloh and set up the Mosaic taber- 
nacle, 1 8 : I, whose exclusiveness is beyond dispute. 
Here Eleazar the son of Aaron was priest ; and he 
with Joshua and the heads of the people divided the 
land by lot before the LORD at the door of the taber- 
nacle of the congregation, 19 : 51. The narrative of 
the altar of witness erected on the east of the Jordan by 
the two tribes and a half and the negotiations relative 
thereto, ch. 22, show how criminal a departure from 
the faith of Israel the building of a separate altar was 
felt to be. We can not concede to the critics the right 
to set these statements aside as summarily as they do, 
simply because they do not square with their hypothesis. 

Proceeding to the next historical book, Judges 
knows but one house of Jehovah, 19 : 18, that at Shi- 
loh, 18 : 31, where the annual feast of Jehovah was 
celebrated, 21 : 19. The critics indeed profess to find 
mention made of a number of sanctuaries at Bochim, 
Gilgal, Kedesh, Tabor, Ophrah, Shechem, the two 
Mizpehs, Zorah, Bethel, Dan, and the chapel of the 
renegade Micah. The whole of which is pure inven- 
tion ; and to adopt a simile, which Wellhausen 1 him- 

1 "Geschichte Israels, ''p. 167. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 161. 



36 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



self employs, but with a different application, they 
have liberally besprinkled the chart of history with 
their own ideas after a fashion in which geographers 
sometimes indulge in maps of unexplored regions. 
With the exception of those which are distinctly stig- 
matized as idolatrous there is not one sanctuary in 
the whole number. The only seeming deviations from 
strict regularity arise from the fact that upon the ex- 
traordinary manifestations of God's presence sacrifices 
were at once offered upon the spot ; but so far as ap- 
pears they were strictly limited to the occasion that 
called them forth. The allegation that the stories of 
these theophanies originated at a later time to procure 
credit for sanctuaries which had been established at 
these various places, as well as the like assertion made 
respecting similar events in the lives of the patriarchs, 
inverts the real order of cause and effect. Places thus 
hallowed by divine manifestations gained a prestige 
which led in some instances to their subsequent selec- 
tion as .seats of idolatry. But the narratives of the 
theophanies were not generated by their being fre- 
quented as places of sacrifice, and can not of them- 
selves be adduced in proof that they were ever put to 
such a use. 

According to the Books of Samuel, at the close of 
the period of the Judges, the house of God was still 
in Shiloh, I : 24, and is expressly identified with the 
Mosaic tabernacle of the congregation, 2 : 22. It was 
resorted to by all Israel, 2 : 14, 1:3, as the appointed 
place of sacrifice, 2 : 28, 29, and contained the ark 
which was the symbol of the divine presence, 4 : 4. 
But from the time that God forsook Shiloh for the 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



sins of the priests and people, suffering the ark to fall 
into the hands of the Philistines, until his habitation 
was fixed in Zion, Ps. 132, or more exactly until the 
temple was prepared for its reception, Jehovah had 
no dwelling-place in Israel. During this anomalous 
period the law of the unity of the sanctuary was neces- 
sarily in abeyance ; and the people were obliged to 
sacrifice in high places so far as they sacrificed at all, 
L Kin. 3 : 2. 

But with the erection of the temple of Solomon 
and the depositing of the ark in its most holy place, 
and the coming in of the radiant cloud betokening 
the divine glory, the old legal status was again re- 
newed. Thenceforward this was, as it was designed 
to be, 1 Kin. 8:16-21, the one house of God in 
Israel, and high places were ever after synonymous 
with corruption and idolatry, 1 1 : 7, 8, 14:23. Good 
men never sanctioned them. To this there is but one 
exception, which serves to confirm the rule, the altars 
of which Elijah speaks, 19: 10, 14, when in the schism 
and apostasy of the northern kingdom the pious 
there were debarred from attendance at the temple. 
God-fearing princes sought to remove the high places, 
with only partial success, until Hezekiah, who sup- 
pressed them during his reign. His ungodly son and 
grandson, Manasseh and Amon, restored them, but 
Josiah abolished them afresh. The law of the unity 
of the sanctuary instead of originating in the reign 
of the last-named king, was the law of Israel's his- 
tory from the beginning, only passing under eclipse 
at one degenerate period in the lifetime of Samuel 
and of Saul, when the ark of the Lord became an 



38 THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



object of dread instead of joyful confidence, and 
Israel was for a season without the symbol of Jeho- 
vah's presence or the privileges of his sanctuary. 
There never was but one ark of the covenant : the 
presence of that ark in the sanctuary made it Jeho- 
vah's dwelling : and there could be no other. 

This same conclusion is further confirmed by the 
unanimous voice of Psalmists and of Prophets. They 
uniformly speak of Zion as God's earthly dwelling- 
place, never of any other. Not a solitary passage 
can be adduced from any one of them which refers 
to other places of sacrifice than Zion, except in the 
language of rebuke and denunciation. The attempt 
to foist upon different periods of Israel's history a 
diversity of views in relation to God's true sanctuary 
is a signal failure. It is in the face of the teaching 
of every book in the Bible. 

It will be sufficient at present to refer briefly to 
certain other palpable falsities in the methods or 
results of Wellhausen's hypothesis. 

He infers the non-existence of a statute from a neg- 
lect or disobedience w T hich warrants no such conclu- 
sion ; and he claims that it must have originated at 
the time when it is brought into new prominence or 
is more fully enforced than before ; a method of 
reasoning which might equally be made to prove that 
Luther invented the New Testament. He also in- 
fers the non-existence of laws and institutions from 
the simple circumstance of their not being mentioned 
or referred to in the history, even though there was 
no occasion for such mention, and no reason to expect 
it ; and the fact of their being so well known and 



THE WELL HA US EN HYPOTHESIS, 



constantly observed may itself account for the omis- 
sion of what might safely be taken for granted, so 
that any special reference to it seemed unnecessary. 
Or must a historian of America be perpetually refer- 
ring to the fact of the observance of the fourth of 
July or the use of the Gregorian calendar? 

He undertakes to establish the hypothesis by its 
correspondence with the history : and in order to do 
this he first adjusts the sources of history themselves 
by critical processes in which he assumes the very 
thing to be proved, and denies the validity and genu- 
ineness of every passage that controverts it ; thus 
proving his point by the fallacy of the circle. 

He requires us to suppose that forged codes of 
laws were at two different times successfully imposed 
upon the people as the genuine productions of 
Moses, and this though they were at variance with 
laws previously in force and regarded as his, and 
though the serious changes which they introduced 
were hostile to the interests of numerous and power- 
ful classes. 

He asks us to believe further that three conflict- 
ing codes of laws, the more recent of which had in 
each case displaced its predecessor, came in some 
mysterious way to be regarded as of equal validity, 
and were all blended together as one harmonious 
body of law, in which no discrepancies were suspected, 
all being accepted as alike Mosaic and canonical, and 
all faithfully obeyed notwithstanding the increased 
burdens thus assumed. 

He would have us think that the people of Israel 
have been from the beginning utterly mistaken as to 



THE WELLHAUSEX HYPOTHESIS. 



their own institutions and written records, and that 
these have throughout been systematically falsified 
without any suspicion of the fact ever being awak- 
ened ; that their entire history is a gigantic fabrica- 
tion, which was accepted as consistent and true until 
a few years ago, when he and his compeers detected 
and exposed the cheat. 

It has sometimes been said that this hypothesis 
does not affect the Christian faith in any vital way. 
It leaves the contents of the Scriptures unchanged. 
It is merely a question of order; whether that which 
has commonly been placed at the beginning, really 
belongs there or has its proper place at a later stage 
in the divine plan of guidance or instruction ; whether 
the true order is first the law, then the psalms, then 
the prophets, or whether the prophets may not have 
preceded the law and the psalms ; whether the law 
was all given at once in the infancy of the nation, or 
whether it may not have been gradually evolved as 
the changing necessities of Israel required. Why 
may not the divine authority of Deuteronomy and of 
the entire Pentateuch be the same, though the former 
was produced under Josiah and the latter reached its 
present form under Ezra, as though all had come, as 
we now have it, from the pen of Moses? 

The serious aspect of the matter is that the truth- 
fulness of the Scriptures is impugned at even' step. 
If this hypothesis be true, the Scriptures are not 
what they represent themselves to be; the facts of 
the history are altogether different from that which 
they declare ; their testimony is unreliable and un- 
trustworthy. It requires great critical acumen to sift 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



41 



the evidence and extract the modicum of truth from 
the mass of fable. The inspiration and authority of 
the Old Testament are swept away entirely or can 
only be maintained in a very qualified sense. And 
as the New Testament is based upon the Old, how 
can the former be rationally defended, if its founda- 
tion in the latter is undermined and totters to its 
fall? How can our confidence in the Lord Jesus 
himself remain unshaken, if his declarations respecting 
Moses and his law are not to be trusted? The au- 
thors and chief promoters of the hypothesis do not 
disguise their hostility to supernatural religion. The 
denial of the truth of miracles and of prophecy is 
one of their primary principles, and is the corner- 
stone of their entire structure. The hypothesis is 
just an ingenious attempt to account for the Old 
Testament on purely naturalistic principles. The 
violence of the methods to which it is obliged to re- 
sort to compass this end, and the extravagant and 
incredible conclusions to which it leads, show how 
impossible is the task which it has proposed to itself. 

The spirit and aims of those who urge this hy- 
pothesis do not, however, concern us at present. We 
have to do simply with the hypothesis itself and the 
arguments by which it is defended. In this brief 
course of lectures it will be impossible to deal thor- 
oughly with this subject in its entire extent. It will 
be best to restrict our examination to a definite field ; 
and I have selected for this purpose the sacred sea- 
sons of the Hebrews, as a theme interesting in itself 
and one upon which great stress has been laid in con- 
nection with this subject. It is generally agreed 



THE WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS. 



among the critics that the laws relating to the re- 
ligious festivals of the Jews furnish one of the strong- 
est supports for the view that the Mosaic institutions 
were not the product of one mind or of one age, 
but that they advanced from simple forms in prim- 
itive times to those which were more and more com- 
plex ; and that the successive stages of the process 
can still be traced in the various enactments on this 
subject. The topic to which your attention will be 
requested in the subsequent lectures of this course, 
then, will be the annual feasts of the Hebrews in 
their bearing upon the latest phase of Pentateuchal 
criticism. In the next lecture the endeavor will be 
made to trace the history of critical opinion in rela- 
tion to these feasts. 



II. 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION RESPECT- 
ING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 



II. 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION RESPECTING 
THE HEBREW FEASTS. 

DR. ROBERTSON SMITH in his article on the 
" Bible," in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 
p. 636 says: " On the Passover and feast of Un- 
leavened Bread we have at least six laws, which if not 
really discordant, are at least so divergent in form 
and conception that they can not be all from the 
same pen." Kuenen undertakes to determine the 
chronological order in which these laws must have 
severally followed each other, each representing the 
usage of the period to which it belongs. Wellhausen 
maintains that certain of these laws correspond with 
the practice indicated in the historical and prophetic 
books before the Babylonish exile, and he points out 
others which represent the practice subsequent to 
the exile and which he consequently infers could only 
have originated in the post-exilic period. These laws 
are nevertheless all found in the Pentateuch, where 
it is expressly declared that they were without ex- 
ception given by Moses to Israel in the wilderness. 

The passages in the books of Moses relating to the 
annual feasts are the following, viz. : 

I. Ex. xii. 1-28, 43-51, xiii. 3-10, the narrative of 
the original institution of the Passover and of the 

(45) 



4 6 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



feast of Unleavened Bread, and the regulations re- 
specting them given before leaving Egypt. 

2. Ex. xxiii. 14-19, a summary account of the three 
annual feasts, in which pilgrimages were required, as 
prescribed in the Book of the Covenant ratified at 
Mount Sinai. 

3. Ex. xxxiv. 18-26, a substantial repetition of the 
preceding upon the renewal of the covenant after the 
sin of the golden calf. 

4. Lev. xxiii., an enumeration of the feasts and holy 
convocations to be observed in the course of the year, 
with the special ceremonies connected with them. 

5. Num. ix. 5-14, on the occasion of the first annual 
repetition of the Passover a supplemental observance 
of it was ordained for those unclean or absent at the 
appointed season. 

6. Num. xxviii., xxix., the public offerings required 
throughout the year, including those at the annual 
feasts. 

7. Deut. xvi. 1-17, an admonition to observe the 
three annual feasts and to celebrate them at the sanc- 
tuary about to be divinely chosen. 

The scheme of the sacred seasons set forth in these 
laws is consistent and complete. It is based on the 
primitive institution of the weekly Sabbath. This is 
a regularly recurring portion of time, withdrawn from 
ordinary worldly occupation and surrendered unto 
God the Creator, not as a full discharge of obligation, 
a payment of what is due to God, so that when this 
is given a man has purchased the right to the re- 
mainder of his time for his own exclusive use ; but 
this is set apart in a special manner ia recognition of 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 47 



the fact that all belongs to God and should be used 
for him. The observance of the Sabbath is a privi- 
lege as well as a duty. It is a weekly release from 
the curse of labor which sin has imposed, and was 
further to Israel a commemoration of their deliver- 
ance from the servitude and toil of Egypt, Deut. 
5:15, and a participation for the time in the rest of 
Paradise and the rest of God and a foretaste and an- 
ticipation of the rest that remaineth for the people of 
God. Ps. 95 : 1 1. 

This patriarchal institution was in the Mosaic law 
expanded into a sabbatical system by applying the 
septenary division in succession to every denomina- 
tion of time. The seventh month was a sacred month, 
marked by an accumulation of holy days, its first day 
being observed as a sabbath, including which there 
were four festive sabbaths and six additional feast 
days in the month. The seventh year was a sabbati- 
cal year, during which the land was to rest and lie un- 
tilled. The fiftieth year, or the year succeeding seven 
times seven years, was the year of Jubilee, which gave 
release from the burdens of impoverishment and ser- 
vitude ; in it the Israelite who had sold himself for 
debt was set free, and property that had been alienated 
reverted to its original owners ; and all was thus re- 
stored to its primitive status. 

The sense of obligation to the Creator, and rest 
from worldly toil, w r ere thus provided for. Gratitude 
for the gifts which he bestows, both individual and 
national, and the expression of thankful joy in them 
was next to be added. This was the specific purpose 
of the feasts, which were accordingly appointed at 



4 8 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



those seasons when God's bounty is so richly mani- 
fested in the productions of the earth, viz., at the 
harvest and the vintage. The harvest, which lasted 
through several weeks, was, as it were, consecrated 
throughout by being enclosed between two festivals, 
Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread at the be- 
ginning when the barley was reaped, and the feast of 
Weeks at its close when the wheat was harvested. 
The ingathering of fruits from their vineyards and 
their oliveyards completed the yield of the year and 
was followed by the most joyous feast of all, that of 
Tabernacles. Passover and Tabernacles were likewise 
commemorative of great national benefits, the former 
occurring at the season of the Exodus and observed 
in memory of the sparing of the first-born in Israel 
during the plague which desolated Egypt ; the latter 
by its booths, such as were used by those engaged in 
the vintage, being a reminder of the march through 
the wilderness. At each of these three festivals every 
male Israelite was required to make a pilgrimage to 
the sanctuary and there rejoice before the LORD, 
bringing with him his offerings of thanksgiving. 

These feasts were linked with the sabbatical series 
by being governed throughout by the number seven. 
Unleavened Bread and Tabernacles each lasted seven 
days, and began on the fifteenth, i. e. y the day after 
2x7 days of the first and the seventh month respect- 
ively ; while the feast of Weeks, which lasted but one 
day, was observed upon the fiftieth day, i. e., the day 
after 7x7 days reckoned from the presentation of the 
sheaf of the first-fruits at the feast of Unleavened 
Bread, to which it stood in obvious and direct rela* 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 4g 



tion, thus encircling the entire harvest season, and 
bringing the festivities connected with it to a termi- 
nation, while at the same time it pointed forward to 
the feast of Ingathering yet to come. In like manner 
a day observed as a sabbath was added at the end of 
the feast of Tabernacles, in a sort of dependence upon 
it, though not properly forming a part of it, which 
brought the festivities of the ingathering and the en- 
tire festive cycle of the year to a termination. 

One other idea remained to be emphasized, that 
the sacred seasons might duly represent and bring 
out in proper prominence all the distinctive features 
of the religion of Israel, to whom Jehovah was not 
only the Creator of all and the bountiful source of 
all good both individual and national, but also the 
holy God, whose imperative demand is that his peo- 
ple shall be a holy people. In the sacrifices of every 
day, augmented every Sabbath and feast day, a sym- 
bolic expiation was offered for sin. These reached 
their culmination in the annual day of Atonement, 
whose services are not precisely to be regarded as 
supplementing the deficiencies of other sacrifices : 
but the idea of the expiation of sin already repre- 
sented in the latter found in the ritual of this day 
its highest and most solemn expression in regard to 
the offences of the entire year, and in addition there 
was a striking representation of the thought that the 
sins of the people were taken away absolutely and 
forever. This was fixed on the tenth day of the 
seventh month, so that this purgation was effected 
just before the crowning festival of the year, that the 
people emancipated from the burden of guilt might 
4 



50 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



with a heightened joy pay their thanksgivings to 
Him who crowned the year with his goodness. And 
it was with signal propriety that the trumpet was 
sounded upon the day of Atonement every fiftieth 
year to announce the opening of the year of Jubilee, 
proclaiming liberty throughout all the land, and the 
return of every man unto his inheritance. 

The sacred seasons form thus a complete and 
symmetrical scheme, giving proper and balanced ex- 
pression to the leading ideas of Israel's religion, and 
especially adjusted to their relation to God as their 
Creator, Benefactor and Sanctifier. It is a natural, 
if not necessary conclusion that this is no accidental 
conglomerate. It is not the long accretion of ages, 
a body of laws and usages aggregated in the course 
of time under varying and contingent circumstances. 
It is just the consistent unfolding of one definite 
scheme of thought, and as such bears the stamp of 
one reflecting and constructive mind, by which it has 
been carefully elaborated and adjusted into corre- 
spondence with certain dominant ideas. The judg- 
ment of Ewald 1 upon this subject is the more in- 
structive, since no critic ever had less bias in favor of 
traditional opinions. He rejected as determinedly as 
any the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He 
alleged that " only a few scattered and mutilated 
fragments of the life and laws of Moses survive ": 
and he only referred to Moses " such of the ancient 
institutions of the Hebrews as are of so unusual 
and remarkable a character that they must have 

1 " Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes," Vol. III., pp. 
4ii, 434. 



RESPECTIXG THE HEBREW FEASTS, 51 



proceeded from the exalted genius of one man." 
But this test of itself convinced him that the sacred 
seasons of the Jews originated with Moses. "You 
behold/' he says, "a structure simple, lofty, perfect. 
All proceeds as it were from one spirit, and represents 
one idea, and is carried into effect by what resembles 
counters exactly matched strung upon one cord. 
And it is no mean praise that prior merely natural 
feasts are wisely not abolished nor contemptuously 
cast aside, but restored and filled with new vigor and 
invested with a higher meaning. And while other 
ancient nations have a multitude of festivals with no 
obvious connection, these are few, but linked together, 
illumined with one light, and relating to one supreme 
end (even- one a Sabbath of Jehovah). Whoever 
has a thorough knowledge of these festivals, will be 
persuaded that they have not arisen by slow degrees 
from the blind impulse of external nature, nor from 
the history of the people, but are the product of a 
lofty genius." 

Other critics, however, have been of a different 
mind, as appears from instances already recited. It 
has been confidently affirmed that there are variations 
in the laws above enumerated, which amount to 
serious and irreconcilable discrepancies. These dif- 
ferences affect the number of the feasts, the names 
they bore, the design of their institution, the times 
when they were held, the place at which they were 
celebrated, the accompanying sacrifices which were 
offered, and in general the characteristic usages con- 
nected with their observance. It has been maintained 
that a careful comparison of these laws will disclose 



52 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



the fact that they can not all have proceeded from a 
common source ; that they do not even belong to any 
one age, least of all to the Mosaic ; that they sever- 
ally represent notions which were entertained and 
customs which prevailed at widely separated periods; 
that the origin and history of these institutions can 
here be traced through successive ages and through 
the different phases which they assumed from time 
to time, from the simplicity and rudeness of their 
early beginnings to the elaborate complexity and 
completeness which they ultimately attained ; and 
that the facts as thus deduced from a thorough sift- 
ing of these passages themselves and a comparison of 
them with the course of Israel's history, are very dif- 
ferent from the view which is superficially yielded by 
them, and which is traditionally entertained by those 
who believe these laws to have emanated from Moses. 

Critical opinions upon this subject have passed 
through several successive phases in the course of 
the present century which it may be worth while here 
briefly to review. The first serious assault upon the 
genuineness of the laws respecting the sacred feasts 
attributed to Moses was made in the first decade of this 
century, in the year 1806. This was by De Wette, 1 
then privat-docent in Jena, and was quite in the spirit 
of the prevailing rationalism, the confessed offspring 
of the English deism of the preceding century. 
This maiden publication is marked by a shallowness 
and a bitterness from which DeWette himself after- 
ward receded. It is pervaded by the idea that posi- 
tive religious institutions are the invention of fraud 

1 " Beitrage zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament/' I., p. 290 ff. 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 53 



and priestcraft, and not only dismisses as puerile the 
notion of their divine appointment, but has no con- 
ception even of their being the outgrowth and ex- 
pression of man's religious nature. He seems to 
consider the whole case settled by such flippant sug- 
gestions as that Moses and the Israelites could never 
have held feasts and sacrificial meals amid the priva- 
tions of the desert ; and as to founding them for the 
future he had something of more consequence to 
think of than such " useless and unimportant mat- 
ters." Moses might have arranged for a sacrificial 
meal before leaving Egypt, that the people might 
have enough to eat, but he could not have expected 
the departure or he would have arranged for pro- 
vision by the way. He further points out what he 
considers inconsistencies in the narrative sufficient 
to condemn it. The Passover is at one time rep- 
resented as a protective against the plague of slay- 
ing the first-born, and at another as having an en- 
tirely different design, that of being a memorial of 
this event. As to the former, Moses could not have 
foreseen the plague and the blood would have proved 
unavailing. As to the latter, it is senseless to imagine 
that a memorial feast was instituted during or even 
prior to the occurrence of that which was to be com- 
memorated. They were directed, Ex. 12 : 11, to eat 
the Passover in haste, ready for instant departure ; 
and yet, ver. 39, they were taken by surprise at the 
order to leave and had not leavened their bread or 
prepared their food. They were bidden to eat un- 
leavened bread, 12:8, before the hasty flight which 
occasioned it. And Moses could not in all the haste 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



and confusion of leaving Egypt have planned for the 
future observance of the feast in Canaan. 

The Passover, he concludes, was originally a do- 
mestic or family institution. It was subsequently 
observed at the various sanctuaries or high places 
dedicated to Jehovah throughout the land. The 
command to celebrate the Passover and other feasts 
at one central sanctuary was first given in Deuter- 
onomy (ch. 16), which was a forgery of the reign of 
Josiah. 2 Kings 23 : 22, informs us that it had not 
been so kept before, and ver. 9 that the priests of 
the high places had eaten it, not at Jerusalem, but 
with their brethren. Upon which it is only necessary 
to observe here, that this passage in Kings, notwith- 
standing the use so persistently made of it by modern 
critics, neither states nor implies that Josiah's Pass- 
over was the first that had been exclusively celebrated 
in Jerusalem. It simply means that this Passover 
was observed in more exact compliance with the 
Mosaic prescriptions and was more universally at- 
tended than at any time since the days of the judges. 
And the statement, ver. 9, respecting the priests of 
the high places has no reference to the Passover 
whatever ; it simply declares that in consequence of 
the irregularities of the worship in which they had 
previously ministered, they were not suffered to ap- 
proach the altar at Jerusalem, though they shared 
the consecrated provision with their brethren. 

It is a relief to pass from a captious rationalism to 
♦the more earnest spirit of Dr. F. C. Baur, 1 of Tubin- 

1 Two articles in the "Studien und Kritiken," for 1832. On the 
original Signification of the feast of the Passover and the rite 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 55 



gen, who seeks to comprehend and appreciate the 
Hebrew institutions by studying them in connection 
with parallel observances in other religions. A new 
interest had been awakened in the symbolism and 
mythology of ancient nations by the researches of 
Creuzer and others, who had traced their different 
beliefs and forms of worship to their determining 
causes in the religious nature and necessities of man, 
variously modified by their natural surroundings and 
their race traditions. And it was obvious to suggest 
the application of like principles to the ceremonial of 
the Jews. The comparative treatment of the Old 
Testament was not indeed altogether new. Several 
of the early Christian fathers remark upon the resem- 
blance between the rites of Jewish and of heathen 
worship, and explain it by a divine accommodation 
to human weakness. The people accustomed to these 
usages could not be induced to abandon them at 
once ; hence they were retained by the Most High 
in his own worship in a modified form that they 
might be the more readily attracted from the service 
of idols to that of the true God. The Jewish philos- 
opher Maimonides adopts the same view. This aspect 
of the case was copiously discussed and illustrated by 
an immense amount of classical learning in the last 
quarter of the seventeenth century by Sir John 
Marsham 1 and Dr. John Spencer, dean of Ely.' 

of Circumcision ; and The Hebrew Sabbath and the national Feasts 
of the Mosaic Cultus. 

1 " Canon Chronicus" (London, 1672 ; Leipsic, 1C76, pp. 192 ff. 

2 " De Legibus Hebraeorum Ritualibus," Cambridge, 1685, pp. 
257 ff., 598 ff. 



56 THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



They urge that the institutions of Moses were partly 
borrowed from and partly established in opposition 
to those current in Egypt, and make special applica- 
tion to the feasts as well as to other religious observ- 
ances in detail. Marsham calls attention to the fact 
that ancient nations generally united cessation from 
labor with the celebration of their religious festivals ; 
and that according to the testimony of early writers 
the Egyptians were the first to establish temples, 
feasts and sacrifices, and that in particular their feasts 
were older than the time of Moses. Spencer main- 
tains that a lamb was slain at the annual Passover 
and oxen were sacrificed in the course of the festival, 
because these animals were deemed sacred by the 
Egyptians, appealing to the words of Tacitus that 
" the Jews sacrifice the ram in contempt of Ammon, 
and the ox which the Egyptians call Apis." The 
Israelites were hence to learn that these were no 
divinities, since they could be treated so contempt- 
uously. The lamb was to be set apart four days in 
anticipation of this service, that thus they might 
reject the Egyptian superstition deliberately and 
solemnly. Its blood was to be smeared upon the ex- 
terior door-posts that it might be conspicuous to all. 
This was to be done not by priests, but by every 
father of a family, that all might testify their abhor- 
rence of a worship so degrading. It was not to be 
eaten raw, but roasted with fire, and partaken of quietly 
within doors ; no bone was to be broken and no one 
was to go out at the door of his house until the 
morning, in opposition to the Bacchanalia, in which 
the devotees roamed abroad, in their wild frenzy de- 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 57 



vouring their victims raw and tearing them limb from 
limb. Moreover, the feasts were instituted among 
the Hebrews as a counter attraction to those existing 
among the Gentiles, not because they were pleasing 
to God or suited to his worship, but because they 
were adapted to the childish tastes of the Israelites. 
Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles were appointed 
at the times of first-fruits, harvest and ingathering, 
when feasts were universally observed among other 
nations, that Israel might thus be more readily in- 
duced to observe these festivals which were instituted 
in order to remind them of God's special benefits to 
their nation. 

Hermann Witsius, 1 the distinguished professor at 
Leyden, entered the lists in opposition to these views, 
maintaining that while the Israelites did repeatedly 
fall into the superstitions and idolatries of surrounding 
nations, yet in rites approved of God there was much 
less agreement than had been claimed between the 
Egyptians and Hebrews. Where they did agree, it 
was mostly in matters common to them with other 
cultivated nations, and which were derived by all alike 
from the same source of either reason or tradition. 
Where they agree in other matters than these, the 
probability is that the Egyptians borrowed from 
the Hebrews rather than vice versa. And the cere- 
monial institutions were not established by way of 
accommodation to a refractory people, but had three 
principal aims, viz.: to be (1) a toilsome yoke to sub- 
due the people to submissive obedience ; (2) a wall of 
separation from other nations ; (3) figures and shadows 

1 " Aegyptiaca" (first edition 1683), Basle, 1739, pp. 18, 47, 87, 145. 



53 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



of spiritual things. In regard to the feasts in partic- 
ular he claimed that festive days were peculiar to no 
one religion, but were rooted in man's social nature ; 
and, besides, the distinction between holy days and 
common days was made by God himself at the begin- 
ning and thence derived to all branches of the human 
race, even the rudest and most barbarous. And fur- 
ther, that the Hebrew feasts stood in no relation what- 
ever to those of Egypt, inasmuch as the former were 
fixed at definite periods of the year, while the latter 
according to the testimony of Geminus were held suc- 
cessively at every different season, since the priests 
from religious scruples were opposed to the insertion 
of intercalary days. 

Both the parties to this controversy dealt too largely 
with externals. Too much stress was laid upon super- 
ficial resemblances. Pagan rites as well as those of 
Israel were symbolical ; they were significant embod- 
iments of religious ideas, which they served to awaken 
or express. And it was this significance which gave 
them character. It was no discredit to the religion 
of Moses and no impeachment either of its truth or 
its originality, that many of its outward forms resem- 
bled those of other nations, when the connection in 
which they stood and the whole spirit of the system 
to which they belonged, determined their meaning 
and tendency to be quite diverse, as diverse as the 
worship of nature is from the worship of one true liv- 
ing and holy God. 

Baur recognizes the symbolic character of the rites 
with which he deals, but fails to distinguish between 
the widely divergent systems in which they are found, 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 59 



or to perceive how this affects the signification of 
every individual part so that it is impossible to inter- 
pret the one correctly by the other. 

According to his view a lamb was slain at the an- 
nual Passover because the sun was then entering the 
constellation Aries ; not, as Spencer imagined, to put 
contempt upon the god Ammon, for the Egyptians 
themselves sacrificed rams in the spring. A consecrated 
animal was slain at the season when nature was un- 
folding into new life, to signify that life was devel- 
oped out of death. The narrative of the institution 
of the Passover is discredited ; but its original design 
is inferred from the statement that it was to protect 
the first-born in Israel from death, and that in mem- 
ory of it the first-born was consecrated unto God. 
The first-born of men and animals was holy to Jeho- 
vah. The first-born of the flock or the herd must 
be sacrificed. The first-born of an ass must be slain 
or redeemed. The first-born of men must be re- 
deemed. The rigorous application of the principle 
would have required the death of all, first-born chil- 
dren as well as animals. But human sacrifices were 
abolished as abhorrent even in most pagan nations, 
and in Israel they were not tolerated. The paschal 
lamb, like the ram offered instead of Isaac, was a sub- 
stitute for the first-born and was hence called a 
" Passover"; it was sacrificed and the child was spared. 
It was offered in the opening spring. As nature passes 
through the death of winter to the life of spring, so 
man can only attain a new life by a sacrifice devoted 
to death. He is entering on a new period of time 
and the old guilt should be purged away. It was de- 



6o 



THE HIS TOR Y OF OPINION 



signed to expiate the past and secure all blessings in 
the future for the household thus consecrated, all the 
members of which accordingly were to partake of it, 
but no stranger was to eat it with them. As a family 
sacrifice it was more ancient than the national and 
civil life organized by Moses. It was, however, readily 
brought into connection with the exodus ; the tran- 
sition from the old year to the new and the protection 
granted to each family finding their apt parallel in 
Israel's passing into this new epoch of its history, and 
the collective salvation of the nation. The lamb was 
roasted as the nearest approach to the burnt-offering, 
which its primary signification demanded. It was 
eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread to sug- 
gest the humiliation appropriate to an expiatory ser- 
vice and the purity of the new period uncontaminated 
by the leaven of the old. They were to celebrate 
the Passover with their staff in their hand and their 
shoes on their feet, not to indicate haste, for the haste 
with which they were thrust out was quite unex- 
pected ; but it was to represent them as fully equipped, 
God's organized host, ready for active service in his 
cause. The analogy of the Attic Thargelia leads to 
the further suggestion that in consequence of the ex- 
piatory character of the service and the associations 
of the season, executions at that time had somewhat 
of a vicarious virtue. Hence the crucifixion of our 
Lord and the two thieves at the Passover, and the re- 
markable words of Caiaphas, John II : 49 ff., and the 
execution of James at the same season, Acts 12 : 2, 
and the threatened execution of Peter; hence also 
the custom of releasing one prisoner to exemplify the 



RESPECTING THE HEBRE W FEASTS. 6 1 



expiation effected by the punishment of the rest, John 
1 8 : 39. And the story of the Israelites borrowing 
vessels from the Egyptians is not the record of a real 
occurrence, but arose from mimic representations of 
breaches of the law, atoned for by the Passover. And 
then the other feasts, as the seasons roll around, not 
only express gratitude for the benefits of the pro- 
ductive year, but also for the national blessings spring- 
ing from the same source and following in the wake 
of the deliverance from Egypt. 

Suggestive as some of the remarks of Baur are, his 
exposition on the whole is a failure, because the He- 
brew rites as manifestations of the religious life of 
Israel can only be correctly explained from ideas cur- 
rent in that system to which they belong. An inter- 
pretation drawn from the nature-worship of heathen 
nations will necessarily foist upon them ideas belong- 
ing to a totally different system with which the 
religion of Israel has no sympathy or connection. 
It is noteworthy, however, that freely as he deals 
with the original narrative, he has no difficulty in 
admitting these feasts to be as old as the time of 
Moses, or in providing a solution from his own point 
of view for the discrepancies urged by his prede- 
cessors. 

The next mode of dealing with the feast laws is 
that of the literary critics, who in consequence of 
alleged differences in style and language, refer them 
severally to different authors ; these are assigned 
respectively to distinct periods and are supposed to 
reflect in the enactments which they record the usage 
of these several periods or at least what the framers 



62 THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



of these laws sought to bring about. Each enact- 
ment is thus regarded as independent of all the rest. 
If one law contains, a summary statement of what is 
more explicitly detailed in another, the former is not 
allowed to find its explanation in the latter, but is 
held to represent a simpler and more primitive stage 
in the development of these institutions. If one is 
intended for the guidance of the people generally, 
and consequently does not include the ceremonial 
which is minutely described in another prepared for the 
priests at the sanctuary, it is claimed that the former 
represents a period when no fixed ceremonial had as 
yet been connected with the observance, but the 
worshippers were left to their own free and spon- 
taneous action, untrammeled by the rigid rules of a 
later date. Every diversity in the form of expres- 
sion, to which a different sense can by possibility be 
attributed, is pressed to the utmost and held to be 
significant of a varying conception of the festival. 
And thus laws which in their natural and obvious 
meaning are perfectly harmonious and consistent and 
mutually supplementary, are isolated and set at vari- 
ance and made to do duty in some scheme of the 
critic's own devising. 

It will not be necessary here to indicate the various 
forms which the hypothesis of the successive forma- 
tion of the Pentateuch has assumed in the hands of 
different critics, nor to show in detail how these have 
influenced their conceptions of these laws which are 
now before us. It will be sufficient to distinguish the 
hypotheses of this school of critics from those of the 
most recent and most revolutionary school by one 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 63 



clearly marked criterion. The former regard Deuter- 
onomy as the latest book of the Pentateuch, while 
Graf, Reuss and Wellhausen with their followers 
maintain that the Levitical law, or as they denomi- 
nate it the Priest Code, is later still than Deuteronomy. 

Of the former class of critics, with whose methods 
and results we are now particularly concerned, Gram- 
berg and Von Bohlen maintain that the Hebrew feasts 
are long posterior to the time of Moses ; the rest 
affirm them to be in part, at least, pre-Mosaic, but 
moulded and shaped by Moses in accordance with his 
own religious system. 

Gramberg's " Critical History of the Religious 
Ideas of the Old Testament" was published in 1829, 
in which he undertakes to give an elaborate treat- 
ment of the whole subject. His strong rationalistic 
bias, however, which he is at no pains to conceal, in- 
capacitates him for any real apprehension of the 
religion, with which he deals in a purely formal and 
mechanical manner, and which he seeks to explain 
upon the theory of priestcraft. The various books 
of the Pentateuch are assigned to separate dates from 
the reign of David to the close of the Babylonish 
exile, and their institutions or enactments are com- 
pared with the statements or allusions found in the 
historical and prophetical books of the corresponding 
period. His conclusion is that worship was originally 
free and subject to no statutory regulations. There 
were no fixed feasts except such as were of a domes- 
tic nature and involved no great amount of sacrifices, 
such as the weekly Sabbath and the harvest festival 
whose recurrence was determined by the season. 



6 4 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



Jeroboam's opposition to the worship at Jerusalem 
first led the priests to think of concentrating all the 
services of religion at this sanctuary ; and with this 
view they invented new feasts and multiplied the 
rites connected with them. Subsequently the poets 1 
who wrote Exodus and the rest of the Pentateuch 
referred these ordinances which the priests had insti- 
tuted to the higher authority of Moses ; and finally 
the poetic author of the books of Chronicles recast 
the history of the kingdom so as to create the im- 
pression that the Levitical ordinances were then al- 
ready obeyed. The people may have had feasts in 
honor of Jehovah from their first settlement in 
Canaan : but there is no certainty that even the most 
important of them were Mosaic, and at any rate they 
were not observed in accordance with the Mosaic re- 
quirements until the days of Josiah ; and all the 
feasts prescribed in the Pentateuch were not in exist- 
ence even then. The account of the origin of the 
Passover given in Exodus is self-contradictory and 
purely mythical. It could not have been instituted 
in view of their expected departure from Egypt, for 
Pharaoh had not given them permission to leave, and 
this permission could not have been foreseen. Exo- 
dus was the book of the law found in the temple in 
the reign of Josiah : and the observance of the Pass- 
over dates from this time. The Passover, which was 
celebrated on a single night, and the feast of Unleaven- 
ed Bread, which lasted seven days, were at first distinct ; 
but they are blended in Leviticus and Numbers, 

1 These writers are called 11 poets," because they deal, not with 
facts, but with fictions of their own imagination. 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 65 



which show a great advance in the development of 
the cultus. The feast of Weeks was plainly an inven- 
tion of the priests that they might obtain an early 
supply of the first-fruits. Tabernacles, which in pre- 
vious laws was located indefinitely at the end of the 
year, and was simply the feast of ingathering, came 
to be fixed on a particular day of the month, and to 
be regarded as commemorative of the march through 
the wilderness. 

He finds no trace of the Mosaic feasts in Judges or 
in Samuel : the feast at Shiloh, Jud. 21 : 19, does not 
correspond with the Levitical requirements : and the 
yearly pilgrimage of Samuel's parents, 1 Sam. 1 : 3, 
was a voluntary act of piety. But if the silence on 
this subject had been as profound as he alleges, the 
argument from this to their non-existence is weakened 
by his admission of the Mosaic origin of the weekly 
Sabbath, though this is not mentioned from the time 
of Moses to that of David, 1 Chron. 23:31, or if 
Chronicles be discredited, to the time of Elisha, 2 
Kin. 4:23. Hosea's feasts, 2: 11, he says, were not 
those of the Mosaic law, but were shared between 
Jehovah and Baal. Isaiah shows the first trace of 
annually recurring feasts, 29 : 1 (Heb.), sometime in the 
reign of Hezekiah. The night of the holy solemnity, 
to which he refers, 30 : 29, could not have been the 
Passover, though it may have been the harvest-feast : 
if so, however, it was not observed in accordance 
with Mosaic requirement. 

Von Bohlen 1 thinks that the Sabbath was intro- 
duced about the time of Hezekiah ; and the Passover 

1 " Die Genesis historisch-kritisch erlautert," 1835. 
5 



66 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



in the reign of Josiah. This was borrowed from the 
great spring festival of the ancient world, its name 
denoting the passage of the sun into the vernal 
equinox. Tabernacles is called, Ex. 23 : 16, the feast 
of ingathering at the end of the year, which implies 
a division of time that only became current after the 
exile. 

Stahelin, in his " Critical Investigations/* published 
in 1835, divided the Pentateuchal laws on the score 
both of affinities of language and of enactments into 
what he calls the first and the second legislation. 
The former, which is substantially what has since 
been denominated the Priest Code, was given by 
Moses himself to the Israelites in the wilderness. 
After the people had been long settled in Canaan, 
this was modified into the second legislation, which 
embraces both Ex. 19-24, the Book of the Covenant, 
and Deuteronomy. The first legislation speaks of 
five annual feasts : the second of only three, the 
feast of Trumpets on the first day of the seventh 
month, and the annual Atonement on its tenth day 
having been dropped since Tabernacles also occurred 
in the same month, that pilgrims might not be de- 
tained too long from home. The first legislation 
made both the first and last days of Passover and of 
Tabernacles days of rest or sabbaths : the second only 
their seventh day, a restriction likewise introduced 
for the convenience of pilgrims. The first legislation 
forbids, the second permits to boil the paschal lamb. 
The first legislation enjoins holy convocations at the 
annual feasts, the expression being obscure and easily 
misunderstood ; the second explicitly enjoins three 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 67 



yearly pilgrimages to the sanctuary, and adds the re- 
quirement that they must not appear before the 
LORD empty. In the second legislation, but not in 
the first, mention is made of " the house of the 
LORD." While in the first the months are simply 
numbered, the second legislation defines the time of 
the Passover as in " the month Abib." 

This view of Stahelin, while apparently at the 
furthest remove from the hypothesis of Graf and 
Wellhausen, as his order of the legislative codes is 
the reverse of theirs, nevertheless approximates it in 
this, that he places the Book of the Covenant and 
Deuteronomy together as most closely related, in- 
stead of interposing the Levitical law between them 
as is done by Hitzig, Ewald and the critics of this 
class generally. 

Hitzig 1 maintains that the feast of Unleavened 
Bread was originally observed for but a single day 
or rather night, and that on the first of Abib, in 
memory of the fact that they were forced out of 
Egypt in the night in such haste that they had not 
time to leaven their bread. The extension of the 
feast to seven days is an incongruity, subsequently 
introduced, when the celebration was transferred to 
the middle of the month and was divided into two 
distinct services, the Passover and Unleavened Bread. 
Later still these were fused, and the Unleavened Bread 
became a simple addendum to the Passover, which 
commemorated the sparing of the first-born, while 
the circumstance which originally occasioned the use 

1 " Ostern und Pnngsten," 1837. 11 Ostern und Pfingsten im 
Zweiten Dekalog," 1838. 



68 THE HIS TOR Y OF OPINION 



of unleavened bread sank into the background or was 
lost sight of. The second of the annual feasts was 
in the first instance called " the feast of Harvest " and 
occurred at the beginning of barley harvest, barley 
being the earliest of the grains to ripen. Next it 
received the name " feast of Weeks " and was placed 
fifty days after the first of Abib, one day for each 
of the fifty weeks of the year, which brought it to the 
beginning of wheat harvest, in the middle of the har- 
vest season. Finally it was transferred to the end of 
wheat harvest, or seven weeks reckoned from a later 
time of beginning than before, viz., from the time of 
first putting the sickle to the corn. 

Leviticus gives the immediate and organic advance 
upon the oldest prescriptions in the Book of the 
Covenant. Deuteronomy is based upon both the 
preceding, and produces a new result from a mixture 
of both, among other things simplifying the law by 
doing away with the feast of Trumpets and day of 
Atonement, and the minute and burdensome ritual in 
the spirit of the reformatory period of Josiah. All 
this he has no difficulty in establishing by a judicious 
application of the critical knife. 

One of the best replies to the vagaries of Hitzig 
was furnished by Bertheau, 1 who, though he began 
his studies under a different impression, was brought 
by his investigations to the conviction that the laws 
of the Pentateuch, and particularly those relating to 
the feasts, belong to one connected and consistent 
scheme of legislation, the product of one mind and 

1 "Die Sieben Gruppen Mosaischer Gesetze," 1840. 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 69 



of one period, and that this can be attributed to no 
other than to Moses in the wilderness. 

Ewald, 1 who yields to none in critical acumen, and 
whose hypothesis for the critical dissection of the 
Pentateuch is certainly as elaborate as any, was never- 
theless satisfied on internal grounds that the Hebrew 
feasts were undoubtedly Mosaic. He contests the 
allegation that nothing can be certainly known of 
the life and institutions of Moses, and complains that 
critics generally have shown more zeal in discovering 
what can not have come from Moses, than in ascer- 
taining what is really from him. He finds nothing 
written by Moses in which the feasts are orderly 
treated. He conceives that the feast laws, as we now 
have them, are from later writers ; but they contain 
what was established or initiated by him, only modi- 
fied by the relations of later times. But the com- 
parison of these brings to light that which attests his 
superior genius and can only have come from him. 

He traces the festivals observed by different na- 
tions to three different sources. They may be — 1. 
Natural, based on the changing seasons of the year ; 
these are common to almost all ancient nations. 2. 
Historical, commemorating past events of importance 
or national interest ; these are found among few peo- 
ples comparatively and differ according to the genius 
and history of each. 3. Legislative, when some su- 
perior mind grasps the disconnected and discordant 
institutions that may have arisen, and infusing a new 
spirit into them, brings them into one complete and 

1 " Die Alterthumer des Volkes Israel," and his article in the 
" Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes," 1840. 



70 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



harmonious system. This is the lofty height to 
which the sacred seasons of the Hebrews were 
brought by Moses. 

Their great annual feasts, so far as they are of 
natural origin, are pre-Mosaic, and are coincident with 
the festivals of the vernal and autumnal equinox 
observed by all nations of antiquity. In the fall they 
expressed their joy at the ingathering of fruits by 
glad processions bearing fruit and branches of trees. 
In the spring they had a twofold service, the pres- 
entation of the first-fruits of the opening year and 
an expiatory rite for cleansing and security from 
the perils that were before them. This expiatory 
service was retained in the Passover, whose very name 
attests its antiquity. It is derived from a verb 
which was no longer in common use in the days of 
Moses; and it denotes a sacrifice offered to obtain a 
happy passage, not through a sea or river, but through 
the coming year. Its rites breathe the spirit of an 
earlier time, and were sanctioned by the Mosaic law 
on account of their venerable antiquity. It was slain 
by the head of each family at his own house, was to 
be eaten by every male, and its blood was sprinkled 
on the lintel and door-posts to consecrate the house, 
so that all the dangers of the year then beginning 
might be averted from, the family. It was to be 
roasted, this being the most ancient style of cooking 
flesh for food ; and eaten with bitter herbs, as a more 
suitable accompaniment of an expiatory service than 
what was agreeable to the taste. It was a lamb, not 
from antagonism to Egyptian superstition as Spencer 
maintains, nor, as Baur contends, because the sun 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 71 



was then entering the constellation Aries ; for there 
is no evidence that the Jews knew anything of the 
signs of the Zodiac for centuries afterward ; but be- 
cause it was an animal easily procured and of proper 
size for the domestic meal. The use of unleavened 
bread at the spring festival grew out of the fact that 
the bread hastily prepared amidst the toils of harvest 
could not be leavened. 

These had no historical associations prior to the 
time of Moses. But what he chiefly added, was the 
new spirit which pervaded the whole Mosaic religion 
and also transformed these ancient festivals. Its su- 
preme tenet was that every individual and the whole 
people should dedicate themselves and all theirs to 
God, should be governed by his will, and should ob- 
tain their rest and refreshment in what is pure and 
holy. As this is hindered by the cares and distrac- 
tions of life, sacred periods were instituted for this 
end, specimens as it were of the undisturbed serenity 
of the divine life, in which men might for the time 
be lifted to this pure and perfect state. This idea, 
though not wholly wanting among other people of 
antiquity, nowhere appears so clearly and strongly as 
among the Hebrews under Moses. With this view 
he instituted the Sabbath. The division of time into 
weeks was known to many ancient nations, but the 
Sabbath is peculiar to Israel, and was developed into 
the successive cycles of the Sabbatical year and the 
year of Jubilee. And the annual feasts were septen- 
ary periods and in various ways bear the impress of 
the number seven. There were two great festivals 
which were precisely balanced by giving to each the 



72 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



same three constituents, symmetrically adjusted, a 
fore-feast, the feast proper, and an after-feast. They 
were placed respectively at the full moon in the first 
and the seventh month, the first month, that is, in 
each half of the year. In each there was first a fore- 
feast consisting of an expiation on the ioth day; in 
the first month the Passover lamb was selected, and, 
as Ewald thinks, originally slain on that day to avert 
all coming evil ; in the seventh month, the day of 
Atonement, of higher intensity and retrospective, to 
expiate the sins of the past, not those of a family 
merely, but of the whole people. Then followed on 
the 15th the feast itself, lasting seven days — the feast 
of Unleavened Bread in the one case, and of Taber- 
nacles in the other. Finally an additional day as an 
after-feast, the feast of Weeks at the end of harvest, 
and the day following Tabernacles, which concluded 
the festivals of the year. 

Von Lengerke 1 adopts substantially the views of 
Ewald, making the feasts to have all been appointed 
and arranged by Moses, though partly based on pre- 
Mosaic festivals. 

Hupfeld 2 discovers much diversity and many in- 
consistencies in the feast laws ; and in none of these, 
even the most ancient, is the true origin and ground 
of these festivals correctly stated. While the festivals 
themselves are Mosaic, the laws, as we now have 
them, were committed to writing by different persons 

1 " Kenaan, Volks-und Religiohsgeschichte Israels," 1844. 

2 *' De vera et primitiva festorum ratione apud Hebraeos," 3 parts, 
issued in 1851, 1852 and 1858, respectively, with an appendix in 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 73 



long after, when their real reason had been obliter- 
ated and lost ; this can now only be recovered by the 
study of the feasts themselves. These sacred rites, 
which require for their proper observance a peaceful 
and flourishing condition of public affairs, became in 
the calamitous and unsettled state of things after the 
occupation of Canaan disturbed and obsolete beyond 
other institutions ; so that there is almost no trace 
of their having been celebrated in accordance with 
the requirements of the law at any subsequent period 
of the Biblical history, whether before the Babylonish 
exile or after it. 

There was according to Hupfeld but one agrarian 
feast properly speaking, that of Tabernacles or In- 
gathering, and one of consecration, that of Unleavened 
Bread. The latter was only improperly called a feast. 
It was a solemnity, but not a period of festive joy, 
like the feast of Tabernacles, which is hence often 
spoken of as " the feast " by way of eminence, as 
though it stood alone, — Lev. 23 : 39, 41, 1 Kin. 8 : 2, 
65 (whence 2 Chron. 5:3, 7:8, 9), 1 Kin. 12 : 32, 
Ezek. 45 : 25, Neh. 8 : 14, Ps. 81 : 3. It had two pre- 
liminary antecedents, standing in the same prepar- 
atory relation to it, as the Passover to the feast of 
Unleavened Bread, and they rose by three gradations 
to the climax. There was first, at the beginning of 
harvest, the presentation of a sheaf of the first- 
fruits, with appropriate sacrifices, though the day was 
not kept holy. Secondly, at the close of harvest two 
loaves were presented with augmented sacrifices and 
the day was observed as a Sabbath. Finally, after 
the fruits were all gathered in, the feast proper was 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



celebrated for seven days, the customary length of a 
sacred period, and was crowned with the closing so- 
lemnity of the eighth day. 

When the calendar was changed so that the month 
of the Exodus became the first in the year, that of 
Tabernacles was counted the seventh. But from the 
earlier laws, Ex. 23 : 16, it appears that the year orig- 
inally began with the autumnal equinox, and the feast 
of ingathering then occurred " in the end of the 
year," or as Hupfeld renders it, " after the end of the 
year," that is, in the first month of the new year. It 
was with this month also that the Sabbatical year and 
the year of Jubilee began, the entrance of the latter 
being formally announced by the blowing of trumpets 
throughout the land. The first day of this month, 
which was observed as a Sabbath, and upon which 
the trumpets were also to be blown, was accordingly 
the opening of the new year. And the day of Atone- 
ment on the tenth of the month was designed to effect, 
at the beginning of the year, an expiation for the sins 
of the past, that thus as a holy people they might be 
prepared for their feast of thanksgiving, and in it con- 
secrate the produce of their land to God the giver. 

Thus reckoning, the month of the Passover will be 
the seventh, at the middle or culmination of the year, 
and its services are an advance upon those held at 
the beginning. Passover was not at first a commem- 
oration of the exodus. And it was not an expiatory 
offering, but an act of communion and of consecra- 
tion. Unleavened bread was the food of priests. The 
father of each household performed a priestly func- 
tion in slaying the lamb, which had the same signifi- 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 75 



cance as the ram of consecration offered for Aaron 
and his sons, when they were admitted to the priest- 
hood. The sprinkling of the lintels and door-posts 
was with the same intent as the sprinkling of the altar 
and the sanctuary on the day of Atonement ; it hal- 
lowed the house. The aim of the day of Atonement 
was negative, the removal of sin, a general expiation 
on behalf of the whole people, such as was common 
among other nations. That of the Passover was posi- 
tive, sacerdotal communion with God, lifting each 
head of a family with his entire household to the 
priestly dignity, making each and all priests unto God, 
a service wholly unique and peculiar to Israel. 

The seventh month, upon this enumeration, was 
characterized by the consecration both of the people 
and of the land to God; the devotion of the first-born, 
which was associated with or superseded by the Pass- 
over, and the offering of the first-fruits, in two suc- 
cessive acts of presentation, fifty days apart, corre- 
sponding to the two harvests of barley and of wheat. 
In the seventh year not the first-fruits only, but all 
that the land yielded was given unto God. In the 
fiftieth year all alienated properties and all bondmen 
were restored gratuitously, or rather were surrendered 
unto God as sovereign proprietor and lord of both 
the land and the people, who grants to those who 
hold possessions under him no right of absolute own- 
ership, but only of temporary use. 

Knobel 1 is more disposed to look to the historical 
statements respecting the origin of the feasts for their 

1 4 4 Die Biicher Exodus und Leviticus" (1857), especially his pre- 
liminary remarks on Lev. ch. 23. 



76 THE HIS TOR V OF OPINION 



explanation than any of his critical predecessors, who 
have preferred to ignore these statements entirely. 
Yet even he does not venture the length of giving 
full credence to the Mosaic narrative. That perhaps 
would have been quite uncritical. The Passover, he 
infers from the history, was borrowed from no pre- 
existing custom. It was not a nature festival, cele- 
brating the transition from winter to spring, nor an 
expiation offered to gain a happy transit through the 
year which had just begun, but a sacrifice appointed 
by Moses in the immediate prospect of leaving Egypt, 
to obtain the help and protection of their fathers' 
God. It may be compared with burnt-offerings sac- 
rificed on the eve of great undertakings to obtain the 
divine aid in their accomplishment. As the enter- 
prise proved successful the ordinance continued to be 
celebrated in memory of the heavenly assistance which 
had been vouchsafed to them. In later times it came 
to be specially associated in the minds of the people 
with the divine interposition in sending those plagues 
upon Egypt, which rendered their departure practi- 
cable, while sparing Israel from their effects : and it 
was hence called the Passover. At a still later time 
the last plague of pestilence was converted into a 
miraculous slaying of the first-born ; and then the 
Passover and the sprinkling of the blood were ex- 
plained with particular reference to it. But this is a 
departure from the truth of the history. All which 
shows how easy it is for a critic to believe just as 
much or just as little as he pleases of a historical rec- 
ord. The feasts of Unleavened Bread, of Harvest and 
of Ingathering were previously existing festivals which 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 77 



Moses adopted and into which he infused a new spirit. 
Passover, the day of Atonement, and the Sabbath were 
original with Moses. In general the Elohistic legis- 
lation faithfully reproduces the institutions of Moses ; 
the Jehovistic contains modifications of a later age. 
Leviticus enjoins no pilgrimages ; accordingly in the 
early periods of the history, attendance upon the fes- 
tivals was dependent on each one's free will, though 
pilgrimages were the prevailing practice. Later legis- 
lators, as in the Book of the Covenant and Deuter- 
onomy, erect this custom into a law, prescribing that 
every male must appear at the sanctuary, three times 
in the year, at the great annual feasts. 

Dillmann 1 concludes from his critical principles 
that the Book of the Covenant dates from the period 
of the Judges, the Levitical code from the time of 
Solomon, and Deuteronomy from a period later still. 
But although these laws, in the form in which we 
have them, are supposed to belong to various epochs 
subsequent to the Mosaic age, he nevertheless regards 
the feasts as Mosaic or pre-Mosaic ; and to the objec- 
tion drawn from the infrequent mention of them in 
the history, he replies that there are as many refer- 
ences to them as we have any right to expect in so 
brief a narrative. Dillmann adopts the grouping of 
the feasts proposed by Ewald, and agrees with him 
in supposing that the annual feasts were based upon 
the spring and autumn festivals common to all ancient 
nations. These were probably observed by the Israel- 
ites before the time of Moses, possibly with some of 
the same usages as in later times, such as the use of 

J Art. Feste in Schenkel's " Bibel-Lexicon " (1869), Vol. II., pp. 
265-272. 



78 



THE HISTORY OF OPINION 



unleavened bread and sacrifice. Moses rearranged 
the feasts and gave them a new meaning. By con- 
verting the spring festival into a commemoration of 
the deliverance from Egypt, the time of its observ- 
ance came to be definitely fixed, the slaying and eat- 
ing of the lamb became a symbol of God's delivering 
grace and a means of appropriating it, and the un- 
leavened bread was indicative of the purity of God's 
redeemed people. Its old relation to the change of 
seasons was lost sight of, except in so far as it be- 
came a feast of thankful consecration of the harvest ; 
and as in the climate of Palestine it corresponded 
with the first ripening grain, its closing day was put 
seven weeks later when the harvest was ended, thus 
assuming almost the character of a separate and in- 
dependent festival. The time of the autumn feast 
had previously fluctuated with the character of the 
season. But as the feast of Unleavened Bread was 
now established in the first month, that of Ingather- 
ing was placed in the seventh or sabbatic month, to- 
gether with the day of Atonement as a suitable 
preparation for it, and a final day as the solemn con- 
clusion of the festivals of the year. That but three 
festivals are spoken of in the Book of the Covenant 
and in Deuteronomy, while the Levitical law names 
seven, is in his judgment no discrepancy, and is not 
to be explained by the gradual increase in the number 
actually observed, but by the fact that in the one case 
reference is had to the three pilgrimage feasts exclusive- 
ly, and in the other to additional solemnities as well. 
More recently the professor 1 appears to have 

!<< Die Biicher Exodus und Leviticus " (1880). See particularly 
on Lev. 23. 



RESPECTING THE HEBREW FEASTS. 79 



changed his mind with regard to the Mosaic origin of 
the two agricultural feasts of Weeks and Tabernacles, 
and to have adopted the opinion that these can only 
have been introduced after the occupation of Canaan ; 
and that the time of Tabernacles may at first have 
been regulated by the actual ingathering of the fruits, 
and so have varied with the locality and with the 
season ; only it must, at least in the region about 
Jerusalem, have been fixed in the seventh month by 
or before the time of Solomon, from the express 
mention of it at the dedication of the temple. 

This subject has further been treated from an ar- 
chaeological point of view, as by De Wette himself, 
who in his " Archaeology," published in successive 
editions in 18 14, 1830 and 1842, divides the religious 
institutions of Israel into pre-Mosaic, Mosaic and 
post-Mosaic, and classes as Mosaic all those which are 
ordained by the laws of the Pentateuch ; — also by 
Winer, 1 who finds in the thorough and organic rela- 
tion of the feasts to one another a voucher for their 
contemporaneous Mosaic origin ; and who says of the 
critical theories upon this subject that if every one is 
to arrange the materials of Biblical Archaeology in 
accordance with his own easily framed hypothesis of 
the composition of the books of the Bible, this sci- 
ence will soon be destitute of all historical basis. 

The Mosaic Legislation has also been studied sym- 
bolically, and that in the most exhaustive manner by 
Bahr, 2 and with the like result. He finds one consist- 

1 "Biblisches Real-Worterbuch." Third edition, 1847, Art. Feste, 
Pascha, etc. 

2 "Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus," Vol. II., 1839. Second 
edition, Vol. I., 1874, pp. 1, 2. 



8o 



THE HEBREW FEASTS. 



ent and harmonious system of religious ideas embod- 
ied in the whole, generically distinct from those of 
every other people ; all is pervaded by one spirit, and 
the outgrowth of one conception, showing that the 
entire ceremonial law is the product of one mind ; 
and the historical evidence is in his view yet unshaken 
amid all the diversity of opposing hypotheses that 
this is the mind of M6ses. 

We are thus brought in our survey of various opin- 
ions to the Wellhausen hypothesis respecting the 
feasts of Israel, which claims in consequence of their 
agricultural character that they were borrowed from 
the Canaanites after Israel's occupation of their 
country, and that by slow degrees in the course of 
many centuries they grew up to the completed form 
represented in the Pentateuchal laws. 

It is sufficient now to say as the result of our in- 
quiry into the previous treatment of this subject that 
this hypothesis stands opposed to the conclusion, 
which with a surprising degree of uniformity we have 
found to be reached by those who have approached 
its study from so many and such widely different 
points of view ; and by those likewise who certainly 
can not be charged with undue deference to traditional 
opinions and who do not scruple in the most uncere- 
monious manner to set aside the statements of the 
Pentateuch itself. For I have purposely refrained 
from adducing the sentiments of those who like 
Frederick Ranke, Hengstenberg, Havernick, Drechs- 
l«er, Welte, Baumgarten, Kurtz, F. W. Schultz, Oehler, 
Keil and Bachmann, accept the historical testimony 
of the Pentateuch as unquestionably true. 



III. 

THE UNITY OF EXODUS, 
CHAPTERS 12, 13. 



III. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CHAPTERS 12, 13. 

IT would seem as though the inquiry into the origin 
and design of the Hebrew festivals should find a 
prompt and easy answer. We have what professes 
to be, and from the earliest times has been believed 
to be, a contemporaneous record upon this subject 
from the pen of the great legislator himself. It con- 
tains a narrative of the institution of the Passover at 
the time of Israel's departure out of Egypt and of the 
circumstances which led to its institution. It also 
records the enactments at Sinai and on the plains of 
Moab, in which the remaining feasts were added to 
the Passover and the manner of their observance was 
prescribed. 

It is alleged, however, that neither the narrative 
nor the enactments are Mosaic ; that they were in 
fact produced long posterior to the time of Moses, so 
long that they can yield no authentic information. 
The narrative may represent the current belief of the 
period when it was written, and the enactments set 
forth the usages of the time to which they belong. 
But the facts so minutely stated in the one can not be 
reasonably regarded as facts at all ; and the authority 
of the legislator claimed for the other is altogether 
without foundation. 

(83) 



84 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



These startling assertions rest upon three proposi- 
tions, which it is affirmed can be established. 

ist. That the records in question can not bear the 
test of a searching literary analysis. 

2d. That the different passages relating to this sub- 
ject in the Pentateuch do not give a uniform and con- 
sistent representation of the feasts as they existed at 
any one time, but differ so materially that they must 
represent successive stages in their growth. 

3d. That the same stages of development which are 
traceable in the laws can be discovered at successive 
periods of the history. 

It will be necessary to give attention to these 
several points in their order. The one first named 
will occupy us on the present occasion. We proceed 
accordingly to inquire into the literary character of 
the documents with which we are dealing. The 
critics affirm that they are not of one tenor and style 
and can not all have proceeded from the same author ; 
but that on the basis of various literary criteria they 
may with a good degree of certainty be assigned to 
distinct writers ; that they are further defaced by al- 
terations and interpolations of a more or less serious 
character, w T hich are capable of being detected and re- 
moved ; and that some of them are of a composite 
nature and are capable of being separated into their 
primary constituents. When this has been done all 
that is now inconsistent and perplexing will, it is said, 
become intelligible and clear : and the testimony 
which may be gathered from them in relation to the 
true origin of the Hebrew feasts will be very different 
from that which they appear to render in their present 
form. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 8$ 



In proceeding to examine these critical methods 
and results some preliminary observations should first 
be made. 

I. The supernatural facts asserted or involved in 
the Mosaic record afford no good reason for a sum- 
mary denial of the truth of its statements or the 
genuineness of its legislation. God's intervention on 
behalf of his oppressed people in Egypt in fulfilment 
of the promises made to their fathers was indeed on 
the grandest scale. But the occasion was worthy of 
the interference. If the true religion was to be estab- 
lished and perpetuated among the people in the midst 
of abounding paganism, degradation and corruption, 
it was fitting that its introduction should be marked 
by such displays of his delivering might and his divine 
glory, as should demonstrate the infinite superiority 
of Jehovah to the idols of the nations. The assump- 
tion that the miraculous is necessarily false and is to 
be accounted for as a legend of later times has been 
the guiding principle more or less openly professed of 
most of the critics, and with all the show of reasoning 
in defence of their hypotheses this has plainly been in 
the majority of instances the determining considera- 
tion. Such an assumption is a pure begging of the 
question and can not be conceded ; and any super- 
structure built upon it is as insecure as the founda- 
tion on which it rests. The unfriendly animus of an 
opponent does not indeed absolve us from candidly 
examining what he has to adduce, and accepting any 
elements of truth which it may contain and any con- 
clusions which are fairly proved. But we may be ex- 
cused if we are in no haste to commit ourselves im- 



86 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



plicitly to such guidance or to chase every ignis fatuus 
without knowing whither it may lead us. 

2. A second observation is that confident assertion 
does not make up for deficiency of argument. Critics 
do not hesitate to take the most unwarranted liberties 
with well-accredited records and established historical 
facts. By a stroke of their pen they transform the 
text before them, adding to or erasing from it at 
pleasure to make it conform to their own precon- 
ceived notions, regulating the facts by their hypoth- 
esis instead of adapting their hypothesis to the facts. 
It is not without reason that Delitzsch speaks of "the 
omnipotence which resides in the ink of a German 
scholar.'' But baseless possibilities are not at once 
transformed into certainties or even probabilities be- 
cause it may suit the exigencies of a critical hypothesis 
so to regard them. 

We proceed to consider the questions raised by the 
critics respecting the literary form of the feast laws. 
This will require us to occupy ourselves, perhaps to a 
tedious extent, with minute questions of the form of 
expression and the connection of clauses and para- 
graphs, since this is the realm within which the dis- 
cussion necessarily moves. And I hope that I may 
succeed in making at least the nature of the objec- 
tions and the character of the defence clear to those 
who will favor me with their patient attention, though 
the subject is better suited for private study than for 
public discourse. 

The first passage that presents itself is the narrative 
of the institution of the Passover in Ex., ch. 12, 13. 
The last plague of Egypt, the slaying of the first- 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 87 



born, converted Pharaoh's obstinate refusal to let the 
people go into the greatest urgency for their speedy 
departure. Israel was protected from the plague by 
the blood of the Passover lamb on the lintels and 
door-posts of their houses : and the Passover thence- 
forward was a memorial of this great deliverance and 
their being led forth from Egyptian bondage. 

The history of the Exodus here recorded is the 
key of the whole position. If this is a bona fide 
record, the Passover is beyond controversy Mosaic, 
and owes its institution to the circumstances here 
recorded. It is not surprising, therefore, that this 
record has been most persistently and vehemently 
assailed, and that it has been pronounced false and 
mythical. It is affirmed that the Passover was not 
instituted to commemorate the events of the exodus, 
but that these are legends invented to account for an 
institution already existing. These events did not 
give rise to the Passover ; but the Passover gave rise 
to the story of these supposed events. 

Thus Wellhausen : 1 " The custom (of observing the 
Passover) is not barely accounted for in a historical 
way, but in its origin it is itself converted into a his- 
torical fact and then based on its own original. The 
shadow which is elsewhere cast only by an independ- 
ent historical occurrence, here becomes a substance 
and casts itself." Or as it is tersely expressed by 
Dr. Robertson Smith, 2 when speaking generally of 
passages of this description, it is not " actual his- 

1 " Geschichte des Israels," I., p. 105. Prolegomena (English 
Translation), p. 102. 

2 "The Old Testament in the Jewish Church," p. 320. 



88 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



tory"; it is "a law in narrative form." De Wette 1 
more briefly still calls it "a juridical myth." 

The account in these chapters is a continuous, 
closely connected and regularly unfolding narrative 
having all the air of truthfulness, self-consistent and 
suitable to the occasion described. 

As the time approached for the infliction of the 
last plague, the Lord gave to Moses and Aaron, 
12:1-13, detailed directions for the observance of 
the Passover on the fatal night, coupled with the 
declaration that he would pass through the land of 
Egypt that night and smite all the first-born both of 
man and beast, but would pass over those houses on 
which was the blood. He further adds, vs. 14-20, 
that this was to be commemorated in all future time 
by an annual feast of seven days, during which no 
leavened bread should be eaten and no leaven should 
be in their houses. Moses at once, vs. 21-27, sum- 
mons the elders of the people and instructs them in 
regard to the Passover, informing them that it was 
designed to be a permanent ordinance in memory of 
this impending deliverance, and the people, ver. 28, 
did as they were enjoined. 

Then follow, vs. 29-42, the infliction of the plague, 
the consternation of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, 
their forcing Israel out of the land in urgent haste, 
and lading them with treasures as the LORD had 
promised. The numbers of the people and the dura- 
tion of the stay in Egypt are noted, since they were 
fulfilments of declarations long before made to Abra- 
ham. The mixed multitude that accompanied them 
3 11 Beitrage," XL, p. i 9 3. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 89 



gave occasion, vs. 43-51, to a supplementary regula- 
tion respecting the Passover, stating the condition 
upon which foreigners could partake of it. The 
LORD further announces to Moses, 13:1, 2, that 
Israel's first-born of man and beast, so miraculously 
spared, were henceforth to be reckoned his. And 
finally Moses imparts to the people, 13 : 3-10, who 
had left Egypt in such haste that they were unable 
to leaven their bread, the divine injunction, which 
he had not repeated sooner, as it was designed for 
the future rather than the present, that when they 
reached Canaan they were to commemorate their 
departure out of Egypt by an annual feast of Un- 
leavened Bread lasting seven days. And he completes 
the delivery of the messages with which he had been 
entrusted by telling them, vs. 11-16, of the enjoined 
hallowing of the first-born. 

Eichhorn, one of the earliest and most ingenious 
advocates of the divisive hypothesis in Genesis, and 
to whom more than to any other it owed its sudden 
popularity, saw nothing suspicious in the Mosaic 
accounts of the Passover or of the other feasts. He 
appeals 1 to the fact that the writer comes back again 
and again to the same subject in Ex., ch. 12, 13, and 
that he makes supplementary additions in successive 
paragraphs in evidence that these passages were writ- 
ten on the spot, and that they have been preserved 
precisely in the form in which they were originally 
written. And Dr. Dillmann in his recent commen- 
tary, even while contending that quite distinct and 

1 " Einleitung in das Alte Testament," 3d Edit. 1803, Vol. II., 
p. 39^. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 



varying accounts have been blended in these chap- 
ters, and that there have been serious displacements 
and interpolations, nevertheless admits 1 that " at 
first view they cohere admirably/* such is the skill 
with which the final Redactor has pieced them to- 
gether. 

Vater, 2 writing in the interest of the fragmentary 
hypothesis, points out an imaginary inconsistency 
between Ex. 12 : 8, according to which the use of 
unleavened bread was enjoined at the first Passover, 
and vs. 34, 39, which trace it to a subsequent occur- 
rence ; and he suggests that several paragraphs 3 are 
complete in themselves, and might be omitted with- 
out creating any break in the narrative ; whence it 
might be inferred that they were of independent 
origin. 

Gramberg 4 discovered that two distinct narratives 
had been combined in these chapters, which when 
taken separately gave entirely different versions of 
the transaction. To the first narrator, or rather 
poet, for all is pure invention, belongs the whole of 
ch. 12, except vs. 14-20, the direction to observe 
the feast of Unleavened Bread. This, together with 
13 : 1-16, belongs to the second poet. According to 
the former, the Passover was expressly limited to a 
single night, ver. 42, and was a sacrificial or expiatory 
meal, having reference to the myth of sparing the 
first-born, which was further symbolized by the blood 

1 "Die Biicher Exodus und Leviticus," p. 99. 

2 " Kommentar," I., pp. 32, 33 ; II., p. 447. 

3 Viz., 12 : 1-13, 14-20, 40-42, 43~49> 5°-5i ; 13 : 

Religionsideen," I., pp. 271 ff. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 91 

on the door-posts. Unleavened bread was eaten 
with it as a purely subordinate matter, just as it was 
associated with other sacrifices. He finds no diffi- 
culty, therefore, in the subsequent mention by the 
same writer that the haste with which the Israelites 
had to leave Egypt, prevented their leavening their 
bread ; and so is not obliged to avail himself of De 
Wette's solution, 1 that though the writer gives two 
divergent explanations of the use of unleavened 
bread at the Passover, the whole account is so incon- 
sistent that he may easily be supposed to have con- 
tradicted himself in this instance also. Gramberg's 
second narrator had quite a different conception of 
the festival. He mentions no sacrificial lamb as be- 
longing to it in any peculiar sense. It is with him a 
seven-day feast, in which unleavened bread was eaten 
in memory of their hasty departure out of Egypt, 
the first day and the seventh being marked by holy 
convocations and by abstinence from work. He 
never even seems to have suspected a difficulty, 
which others have found so formidable, that one pas- 
sage names only the seventh day as " a feast to the 
Lord," 13:6. 

The other feast laws in Exodus Gramberg parcels 
between the same two writers. The injunction, Ex. 
23 : 15, 34: 18, to observe "the feast of Unleavened 
Bread" belongs to the second; that respecting "the 
feast of the Passover," Ex. 23 : 18, 34 : 25, to the first. 
Inasmuch as these two injunctions are not directly 
connected, but are separated by intervening laws in 
both instances, he infers that the combination of the 

1 "Beitrage," II., p. 197. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



Passover with the feast of Unleavened Bread had not 
yet taken place at the time when Exodus was issued, 
but belongs to the more advanced legislation of still 
later times. 

George 1 also finds two narratives, but discrimi- 
nated by a different principle ; one is purely historical, 
the other simply legal. The first gives an account of 
the plague of the first-born, with only a slight allu- 
sion to the Passover in a single verse, 12 142. The 
other, when purged of interpolations, directs the 
observance of the Passover and states its design, but 
gives no description of the meal connected with it. 

Stahelin 2 assigns all the legal passages without ex- 
ception in Ex. 12 to the first legislation and those in 
ch. 13 to the second. 3 And Vatke, 4 though he reverses 

! ''Die alteren Judischen Feste," pp. 88 ff. His two narratives 
are (1) ch. 11, 12 : 29-42 ; (2) 12 : 1, 3-7, 12, 13, 21-28. 
2 " Studien u. Kritiken," for 1835, p. 462. 

8 Several methods of dividing these chapters as proposed by differ- 
ent critics may here be stated together for more convenient com- 
parison. 

Stahelin : First Legislation, Ex. 12 : 1-28, 43-51 (Mosaic). 

Second Legislation, 13 : 2-16, ch. 19-24, ch. 32-34 ; 

Deut. (post-Mosaic). 
Vatke, " Religion d. alt. Test." L, p. 429, note, adopts 
Stahelin's division, but assigns the first series to the 
seventh century B.C. , and makes the second older, 
though with subsequent additions. 
De Wette (Einleitung ins. A. T.) : 

Elohist, Ex. 12 : 1-28, 37-51 (except 39) ; 13 : 1, 2. 
Jehovist, 12 : 29-36, 39 ; 13 : 3-16. 
Knobel : Elohist, Ex. 12 : 1-23, 28, 37 a, 40-51 ; 13 : 1, 2, 20. 

Jehovist, 12 : 24-27, 29-36, 37^-39 I x 3 : 3~i9> 2I » 22 - 
This, may be further decomposed into what is properly 



4 " Religion d. alt. Test./" p. 429. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 



the order of the legislations, adopts the same division. 
This annuls Gramberg's distinction between the writ- 
ers, that one knew only of the Passover and the other 

from the Jehovist himself, and what he derived from 
other sources as follows : 
Jehovist (proper), 12 : 29-34, 39. 
Rechtsbuch, 12 : 24-27, 35, 36 ; 13 ; 3-19, 21, 22. 
Kriegsbuch, 12 137 3, 38. 
Kayser : Elohist, 12 : 1-10, 14-20, 28, 40-42, 43-51 ; 13 : 1, 2. 
Jehovist, 12 : 11-13, 21-27, 29-39 ; 13 : 3-16. 
So von Orelli in Herzog's " Encyklopaedie," 2d Edition, 
Vol. XL, art. Passah. 
Noldeke : Grundschrift (Elohist), 12 : 1-23, (24-27), 1 28, 37 a, 40, 41- 
51 ; 13: 1, 2. 
Jehovist, 12 : 29-36, 39 ; 13 : 3-16. 
Redactor, 12 : 37 38. 
Schrader : Elohist, 12 : 1-23, 28, 37^, 40-51 ; 13 ; 1, 2, 20. 

Jehovist, 12 : 24-27,29-36, 37^-39 ; 13 : 3-16. 
Dillmann : A (Elohist), 12 : 1-20, 28, 37 <z, 40, 41, 43-50 ; 13 : 1, 2. 
B (2d Elohist), 12 : 2i(?), 31-33, 37 b y 38, 42. 
C (Jehovist), 12 : 2i(?)-27, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 39 ; 13 ; 
3-16. 

Wellhausen : Q (Elohist), 12 : j-20, 28, 37 a, 40, 41, 43-51 ; 13 : 1, 2. 

JE (Jehovist), 12 : (21-27), 2 29-39, 42 ; (13 : 3-16). 3 

Vaihinger; 4 Elohist, Ex. 12:1-24, 28, 29, 37, 38, 40-42, 43-51: 
13 : 1-4, 20. 
Pre-Elohist, 12 : 35, 36 ; 13 : 17-19. 
Jehovist, 12 : 25-27, 30-36, 39; 13 : 5-9, 10-16, 21, 22. 
Amid this diversity it will be perceived that there is a general 
agreement in referring to the 

Elohist, Ex. 12 : 1-20, 43-50 ; 13 : 1, 2. 
Jehovist, 13 : 3-16. 
This seems to be necessary, if any plausible division whatever is 
to be made. 

1 Later addition. 

2 Later addition to Jehovist, or appendage of unknown origin to Elohist. 

3 Later addition by Deuteronomic reviser. 

4 In Herzog's " Encyklopaedie, 11 ist Edit., art. Pascha. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



only of the feast of Unleavened Bread, for the first law 
embraces both. But the two laws differ nevertheless. 
In naming the month of the festival one calls it, 13 : 4, 
" the month Abib "; the other designates it simply by 
its number as " the first month," 12: 18, which ac- 
cording to Vatke and Wellhausen is a very significant 
circumstance, implying a change in the calendar and 
in the time of beginning the year, which took place 
after the Babylonish exile. They further clash in 
their provisions; one law requires a holy convoca- 
tion and abstinence from work on both the first and 
seventh days of Unleavened Bread ; the other upon the 
seventh day only, the civil disturbances of the period 
making it necessary to lighten the burdens imposed 
upon worshippers. Or as Dr. Dillmann still further 
exaggerates the discrepancy by urging the technical 
sense of the term used, rest from toil is not the thing 
required on the seventh day at all, but a pilgrimage 
to the sanctuary: whence he infers that while one 
law prescribes attendance at the sanctuary during the 
entire seven days, the other limits it to the seventh 
day alone, the Passover having first been observed by 
each family apart at their own homes ; and a different 
usage still is represented in Deut. 16:7, which insists 
upon the Passover being eaten at the sanctuary, but 
allows the worshippers to return home on the follow- 
ing day, which was the first of Unleavened Bread. A 
further difference between the two laws, in Ex. 12 and 
13, is found in the fact that while both enjoin the 
eating of unleavened bread for seven days, one en- 
forces it upon the penalty of being " cut off from 
Israel," 12 : 1 5, of which the other, less rigorous, makes 
no mention. 



THE UNITY OF EXGDUS, CH. 12, 13. 



The supplemental law of the Passover, vs. 43-49, 
is by Stahelin as by most critics assigned to the 
author of the preceding regulations in the same chap- 
ter, regardless of the inconsistencies which others 
have pointed out, viz., that one required the whole 
lamb to be eaten in one house, 12 : 46, while the other 
allowed two neighboring families to share it between 
them, ver. 4; that one was issued in Egypt, ver. 1, 
while the terms of the other imply settlement in 
Canaan, vs. 48, 49. 

The majority of critics, however, differ from Sta- 
helin, who saw no divergence between the two pas- 
sages relating to the first-born in ch. 13, and conse- 
quently attributed them both to the same writer. 
The prevalent fashion is to divide them between dis- 
tinct writers, assigning one to the so-called Elohist, 
the other to the Jehovist, or as Wellhausen prefers to 
designate them, Q and JE. This allows opportunity 
for insisting upon a fresh discrepancy, viz., that one 
claims all the first-born in Israel for Jehovah without 
exception, 13:2; but the other, vs. 12, 13, makes the 
firstlings of sacrificial animals unqualifiedly his, while 
first-born children must be redeemed, and the option 
is allowed to redeem the firstlings of unclean animals 
or to kill them. 

There is not a little diversity among the critics in 
their method of dealing with 12 : 24-27, the explana- 
tion to be given to children of the meaning of the 
Passover, which, as Wellhausen says, is allied to the 
Jehovist in phrase and diction, and to the Elohist in 
contents, a joint relation to both, which might tempt 
the unsophisticated to suspect that possibly the Elo- 



96 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



hist and the Jehovist were one and the same person 
after all. Schrader gives these verses to the Jehovist, 
and thus gains what is thought to be a better connec- 
tion for ver. 28 by attaching it directly to ver. 23 ; 
but as the Jehovist could not explain what he had 
previously said nothing about, this makes it neces- 
sary to assume that he had before given a law of the 
Passover, which has been altogether omitted from our 
present text. Knobel rids himself of the trouble- 
some verses by assigning them to the " Rechtsbuch," 
a tertium quid, which other critics pronounce a fig- 
ment of his own imagination. Noldeke thinks them 
a later addition to the Elohist, but not belonging to 
his work in its original form. Kayser, Wellhausen 
and Dillmann attach these verses to those imme- 
diately preceding, vs. 21-23, thus giving them their 
natural connection as an explanation of the rite which 
Moses had just enjoined, and obviating the necessity of 
assuming that a similar injunction had been omitted 
from the text. This whole passage, vs. 21-27, * s then 
by Kayser assigned to the Jehovist. The conse- 
quence of which is, that ver. 28 of the Elohist docu- 
ment connects directly with ver. 20, and the children 
of Israel are represented as doing what the LORD had 
commanded Moses and Aaron, without having them- 
selves been informed what it was. And it has the 
further consequence of leaving these verses as an im- 
pediment in the way of another junction which the 
critics are anxious to form. Ch. 12 : 29 records the 
actual infliction of the last plague, the smiting of the 
first-born throughout the land of Egypt. Ch. 1 1 : 4-8 
contains the announcement of this plague by Moses 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



to Pharaoh. Now if all that intervenes could be 
taken out of the way as an insertion from another 
source, the threatening and its execution would be 
brought together ; the passage thus excluded would 
not be missed ; the narrative not only proceeds with- 
out interruption, but the connection is positively im- 
proved by removing what is thus shown to be a 
foreign element, and a new point is scored in favor of 
the hypothesis that diverse sources have here been 
blended ; on the assumption, that is, that no writer 
can introduce a digression or a parenthesis. 

Dillmann takes a step toward effecting this result 
by assuming a partial transposition in the text of the 
Jehovist, to whom he also refers this passage. He 
queries, however, whether ver. 21 may not be drawn 
from another source, since it says that Moses called 
for " the elders/' whereas, ver. 27, it was " the peo- 
ple " whom he addressed. But this interchange of 
the elders with the people, whose permanent represen- 
tatives they were, plainly did not trouble the Redac- 
tor, and it is too frequent and familiar both in the 
Pentateuch and elsewhere 1 to require the application 
of the critical knife. He also queries whether the 
Redactor has not conformed the expressions in vs. 

22 23 to vs. 7, 12, 13: and certainly they are very 
suspiciously alike to be referred to quite independent 
writers. 

Wellhausen here attains his end by throwing this 
troublesome passage out altogether, still undecided 

1 See Ex. 4 : 29-31 ; 19 : 7, 8. Deut. 5 : 23. 1 Sam. 8:4, 7, etc. 
2 Sam. 5 : 1, 3 ; 17 : 4, 14, 15 ; 19 : n, 14. 1 Kin. 21 : 11. 2 Kin. 

23 : 1, 2. 1 Chron. 11 : 1, 3. 

7 



9 3 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



whether it is an appendage of unknown origin to Q, 
or a later addition to JE. And he is also in perplex- 
ity about the similar passage, 13 : 3-6, on account of 
its resemblance to the style of Deuteronomy ; that is, 
to be sure, easily accounted for if Moses wrote them 
both. But as the Jehovist could not have quoted 
from a book written centuries after his time, this must 
have been inserted here by a Deuteronomic reviser. 

Upon Noldeke's division of these chapters the term 
" Passover " is used only by the Elohist ; and he re- 
marks that its occurrence in the Pentateuch is limited 
to the Elohist and to Deuteronomy with the single 
exception of Ex. 34:25, where it is either a later ad- 
dition or has been retained from the diction of an 
earlier law. And from this avoidance of the term, 
which is created purely by his own critical process, 
he infers that the word M Passover " was not in com- 
mon use in the northern kingdom. According to the 
Jehovist Pharaoh lets the people go to have their 
feast in the wilderness ; according to the Elohist they 
had celebrated it already before leaving Egypt. 

Kayser shifts the lines of division and finds that 
the Jehovist bases both the Passover and Unleavened 
Bread on occurrences connected with the Exodus, 
while the laws for these feasts as given by the Elohist 
are general and irrespective of any historical occasion. 
The Elohist fixes the day upon which the lamb was 
to be selected, and that on which it should be eaten. 
The Jehovist directs that it should be in the month 
Abib without specifying the day. The Elohist ordains 
in the general that all the first-born must be hallowed 
to Jehovah without defining how or when. The Je- 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 



hovist gives a reason for the law, which indicates that 
the sacrifice or redemption of the first-born should 
take place at the Passover. And there are breaks in 
both the Elohist and Jehovist, which require the as- 
sumption of omissions from the text. 

Wellhausen runs a still different line of separation 
and with an altered result. Q, or the Elohist, bases 
the celebration on the fact that Israel was spared by 
the destroying angel. This idea is wholly foreign to 
JE, the Jehovist, as well as to his sources J and E, the 
Jahvist and the other Elohist. They never imagined 
the possibility of the plague falling upon Israel. It 
is to them a necessary postulate, not suspended on 
any condition whatever, that Jehovah will make a dis- 
tinction between Egypt and his own people. They 
lay all the emphasis upon the fatal stroke itself. It 
is this, and not releasing Israel from its effects, which 
is to be commemorated. In the Elohist the feast was 
appointed with a view to the exodus ; in the Jehovist 
the exodus is for the sake of celebrating the feast. 
In the Elohist the blood was to be put upon the door- 
posts once for a definite purpose in Egypt ; in the 
Jehovist it is a standing rite to be annually repeated. 
The infliction of the last plague and Moses* announce- 
ment of it to Pharaoh are put in immediate conjunc- 
tion and both assigned to the Jehovist, but there is 
an irreconcilable variance between the different parts 
of the narrative; for he partly follows one of his 
sources, J, and partly the other, E. 

Dillmann finds use for all three of his sources in 
these chapters, for A (the Elohist), B (the other 
Elohist), and C (the Jehovist) ; and he gives R (the 



100 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



Redactor) plenty to do in the way of transposition 
and modification. He agrees precisely with Well- 
hausen in the verses and parts of verses assigned to 
the Elohist ; but differs in the partition of the remain- 
der, whence there results a number of new discrep- 
ancies. The Jehovist says nothing of selecting the 
lamb four days in advance, but appears to imply that 
the people were to go at once and kill it as soon as 
they received the order ; no fixed age is prescribed 
for the lamb, and no particular quality; nothing is 
said of a Passover meal. Hyssop is to be used in the 
ritual, of which the Elohist makes no mention. The 
Elohist represents this ordinance as then first institu- 
ted by Moses; the Jehovist calls it " the Passover" 
when he first speaks of it, implying that it was known 
and observed before. The Jehovist speaks of a de- 
stroying angel ; according to the Elohist God inflicted 
the plague himself. 

It would seem accordingly that there is no difficulty 
in partitioning these chapters among different writers, 
each of whom shall represent the facts in a manner 
peculiar to himself. Indeed this can be done very 
variously and almost without limit, as the critics 
themselves have been at pains to illustrate. All that 
it is necessary to do is to sunder a closely connected 
passage, and insist that each separate portion shall be 
rigorously interpreted by itself not only with no re- 
gard to its context, but if possible at variance with 
it. The LORD gives to Moses directions respecting 
the Passover, Unleavened Bread and the first-born. 
Moses repeats these to the people. And this is abso- 
lutely made a basis for the allegation that two sepa- 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. ioi 



rate laws are here combined respecting these various 
matters. The Elohist records what the LORD said 
to Moses ; the Jehovist what Moses said to the 
people. It might have been supposed, that as one of 
these necessarily implies the other, the natural infer- 
ence would have been unity of authorship rather than 
diversity of writers. 

But it is said that the law, as declared by Moses to 
the people, differs so seriously from that which is 
spoken by the LORD to Moses in both form and sub- 
stance, that they are manifestly separate laws in every 
case. This allegation is at variance with the princi- 
ples of the reigning critical hypothesis itself. It sa- 
vors rather of the old fragmentary hypothesis, accord- 
ing to which the Pentateuch was a jumble of unre- 
lated and mutually inconsistent paragraphs. But the 
present race of critics suppose that the Pentateuch 
owed its existing form to a Redactor, who has put 
together what he thought to be a self-consistent nar- 
rative, and meant to be so regarded. And if he is 
charged at times with attempting to harmonize ac- 
counts, which in their separate form and primary sense 
were really diverse, this nevertheless shows his belief 
in their consistency. He certainly intended his read- 
ers to understand that the law delivered by Moses 
to the people was identical with that which Moses 
had himself received from the mouth of God. Unless, 
therefore, he was destitute either of honesty or of 
sense there can not be the utter contrariety here 
which the critics profess to discover; and this may 
be affirmed with the greater confidence, as the critics 
disagree to such an extent among themselves as to 



102 THE UXITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



the points in which this contrariety appears. In re- 
peated instances one detects glaring inconsistencies in 
what another quietly ignores, or dismisses as of small 
account. It surely will not be insisted upon that 
the writer must load his narrative with the tedious- 
ness of identical repetition, whenever Moses is made 
the medium of divine communication to the people. 
Why may he not, in repeating the words of Moses, 
abridge what has already been presented to his readers 
with sufficient fulness as the utterance of God, or on 
the other hand enlarge more fully in the former what 
has been briefly stated in the latter? He had a right 
to presume that these would be regarded as mutually 
supplemental*) 7 , and each would be interpreted by the 
other. And if the entire passage be regarded in its 
connection with the fairness and candor that should 
be accorded to any ordinary writer, the discrepancies 
will totally disappear. 

We are entitled, therefore, to exclude from the list 
of alleged discrepancies mere differences in the fulness 
of statement where there is no positive variance, but 
one passage simply omits details which are mentioned 
in the other, and which are not repeated for the rea- 
son that a single reference to them was deemed suffi- 
cient, such as designating the Passover lamb in ad- 
vance, the use of hyssop in sprinkling its blood, and 
the mode in which the flesh of the lamb was to be 
prepared and eaten. But we are told that conflicting 
statements are made in these chapters ; that there are 
inconsistencies in the laws themselves, that the laws 
are inconsistent with the historical narrative, and that 
the narrative is not consistent with itself ; and that 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 103 



the simplest explanation of these inconsistencies is 
that there are here blended the separate accounts of 
distinct writers. Let us see. 

George and Gramberg tell us that the directions 
respecting Unleavened Bread, 12 : 15-20 and 13 : 3-10, 
contain no allusion to the Passover, and the writer 
seems to have no knowledge of any such ordinance. 
But this silence is not surprising, as it had been suffi- 
ciently spoken of in the preceding section ; and fixing 
the fourteenth day of the month at even, 12 : 18, as 
the time to begin eating unleavened bread is a plain 
reference to the use of it at the Passover; and all crit- 
ics now allow that the paragraphs relating to the Pass- 
over and to Unleavened Bread in ch. 12, are both from 
the same writer. Hupfeld and Wellhausen make a 
much more startling assertion, however, if it could be 
established. It is that the feast of Unleavened Bread 
and the hallowing of the first-born in ch. 13, take the 
place of the Passover and Unleavened Bread in ch. 12, 
as the annual commemoration of the smiting of the 
first born and the exodus. One law directs that a 
lamb should be annually slain and eaten ; the other 
ordains that not one lamb only, but all the firstlings 
from both their flocks and their herds should, year 
by year, be offered to God in memory of this great 
deliverance, which indicates a totally different prac- 
tice, and one which corresponds rather with the law 
in Deut. 16 : 2. But the divisive hypothesis itself 
warrants no such conclusion. The Elohist in these 
chapters puts the hallowing of the first-born in con- 
nection with the exodus, as well as the Passover and 
Unleavened Bread ; he does so with equal distinctness 



104 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



elsewhere, Num. 3 : 13, 8 : 17. The offering of the 
first-born is not a substitute for the Passover, but ad- 
ditional to it ; and hence they are so often combined 
in the subsequent laws of the Pentateuch, Ex. 22 : 29 f., 
23 : 15, 34 : 18-20, Deut. 15 : 19 f., 16 : 1. And so it 
is according to the general voice of the critics in the 
Jehovist likewise. 

Hupfeld finds a difficulty in Ex. 12 : 16, according 
to which the first day of Unleavened Bread is to 
be observed as a Sabbath by abstinence from work 
and a holy convocation, and in Lev. 23 : n, comp. 
ver. 7, it is expressly called a Sabbath. Yet on that 
day they were to put away leaven from their houses, 
prepare unleavened bread and slay the passover, and 
they did in fact leave Egypt. But the very passage 
appealed to shows that it was not a strict Sabbath, for 
they are explicitly allowed to prepare their food, which 
was forbidden on the Sabbath, Ex. 16 : 23 ff., 35 : 2 f. 
Besides, sacred actions belonging to the ritual and 
enjoined in the law were lawful upon the Sabbath. 
Part of what is here objected to was to be performed 
the day before in preparation for the Passover. And 
as the feast of Unleavened Bread was only intended 
to be observed in Canaan and had not yet been made 
known to the people, when they were forced out of 
Egypt, this compulsory march was surely no violation 
of the statute. 

A more plausible ground of objection is that 12:16 
directs a holy convocation upon the first and seventh 
days of Unleavened Bread, while 13:6 only distinguish- 
es the seventh day as a feast of the Lord. Two 
points are raised here ; one, that the first passage 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 105 



singles out two days of the seven for special observ- 
ance ; the other, that the terms used to describe this 
observance are different in the two cases. One directs 
that "there shall be a holy convocation and no man- 
ner of work shall be done "; the other, that there 
" shall be a feast to the LORD." Hupfeld thinks that 
these are identical in meaning, the former defining 
how the feast required in the latter is to be observed. 
Dillmann insists that they are quite diverse in signifi- 
cation ; that in its constant usage the word " feast " 
in Hebrew denotes a pilgrimage festival, and that the 
specific thing required is that worshippers should 
make their pilgrimage to the sanctuary, which is quite 
independent of a holy convocation that might be held, 
though none were expected or required to be present 
from a distance. If this distinction be insisted on, 
then instead of exaggerating the difficulty, as seems 
to be thought by Dillmann, it neutralizes it altogether. 
For there is not the slightest collision or interference 
in the two injunctions. If two days are appointed 
for holy convocation and pilgrims from a distance are 
only required to be present at one, the regulations are 
in perfect harmony. In fact Dillmann himself inter- 
prets Deut. 16 : 7, 8, as enjoining this very thing. 

If, however, with Hupfeld we suppose the expres- 
sions to be substantially identical in meaning, no 
difficulty is created by the mention of the seventh 
day alone in the verse above cited. The first day 
had already been singled out in the same identical 
paragraph but three verses before, and the stress of 
the whole observance put upon that day. The reason 
of the institution lay in it. " Remember this day in 



I05 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



which ye came out from Egypt." This was the very 
thing to be commemorated. Here all the sacredness 
centered, which flowed over into the succeeding days, 
and formed them into a seven-day festival. A lower 
grade of sacredness attached to the days that followed, 
though leavened bread was forbidden throughout the 
entire week, which ended, as it began, with a day of 
marked solemnity. It should further be observed 
that this direction was given by Moses to the people 
at the close of the first day of the sacred week. Legis- 
lating for future years, he says, Remember this day of 
signal divine deliverance, eat unleavened bread for seven 
days and observe the seventh. How any one can imag- 
ine that such a command passes over the first day as 
inferior in dignity or to be less sacredly kept than the 
seventh it is difficult to understand. And it is precisely 
the same with the parallel passage in Deut. 16: I, 3, 8. 

The suggestion that 12 : 19 imposes this observ. 
ance alike upon strangers and those born in the land 
upon pain of death, whereas vs. 43-49 debar every 
uncircumcised stranger from keeping it, scarcely de- 
serves mention. For the regulations relate to differ- 
ent matters entirely. One refers to eating unleavened 
bread ; the other to the paschal lamb. Leaven, the 
symbol of corruption, was at this holy season to be 
banished from their land. The celebration of so sig- 
nal a divine interposition demanded the putting far 
away of the leaven of malice and wickedness ; and 
the stranger who was among them was bound by the 
same law. But to the special act of communion de- 
noted by participation of the lamb none but the cir- 
cumcised could be admitted. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 107 



It is further alleged that the laws are inconsistent 
with the narrative in which they are found. But this 
is as untrue as the allegation already examined that 
the enactments are inconsistent with one another. It 
is said that the confusion and haste of leaving Egypt 
was no fit time for appointing such an observance. 
But the cavil overlooks entirely the nature and design 
of the ordinance. The sprinkled blood assured their 
deliverance ; partaking of the lamb was an act of com- 
munion with God, which pledged to them his presence 
and powerful aid. It was just what they then most 
of all needed to be assured of in the perils of that 
night of terror and death, and in the fatigues, priva- 
tions and dangers that were to follow, that they were 
under almighty safe-conduct and that He who com- 
missioned the angel of death was their protector and 
guide, and would surely bring them to the land prom- 
ised to their fathers. 

It is also objected that although it had been an- 
nounced, 11 : 4 ff that the plague inflicted that night 
would break the obstinacy of Pharaoh and set them 
free, and they were directed, 12 : 11, to eat the Pass- 
over in haste, with their loins girt and staff in hand, 
yet the order to leave Egypt was so unexpected that 
they had not even prepared the necessary food, vs. 
34, 39. But apart from any tardiness that may have 
been due to lingering incredulity in regard to a hope 
so often deferred, the people may not have under- 
stood from the midnight plague, nor from the sym- 
bolic readiness for departure in the ritual of the Pass- 
over, that they were then in actual fact to leave in- 
stantaneously. Moses himself seems not to have ex- 



108 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



pected to go until the next morning, ver. 22. The 
graphic details are perfectly true to nature. The 
terrible consternation of Pharaoh and the Egyptians 
wrought a sudden revolution in their minds toward 
the Israelites, whom they now forced out of the 
country with an urgent haste, which they had not an- 
ticipated and for which they were not prepared. 

The critics complain that direction was given, 12:8, 
to eat unleavened bread with the first Passover, and, 
ver. 15, to institute the feast of Unleavened Bread, 
when yet the use of unleavened bread is traced, 
vs. 34, 39, to a subsequent and unforeseen occur- 
rence, the haste with which they were obliged to 
leave Egypt. But the difficulty is purely imaginary. 
It is assumed without reason that the historical inci- 
dent is narrated for the purpose of accounting for the 
use of unleavened bread at this annual festival ; which 
is not at all the case. The feast of Unleavened Bread 
was not instituted to commemorate the inconvenience 
of being obliged to eat their bread at that juncture 
without leaven, which considered in this light was 
wholly insignificant. The incident derives all its 
meaning from the feast already ordained, though not 
yet enjoined upon the people. The exclusion of 
leaven from the Passover as from other offerings is 
due to its being regarded as the symbol of corrup- 
tion. Unleavened bread alone had the purity befit- 
ting a sacred transaction. Israel partaking of a feast 
of Unleavened Bread was thus sealed as a pure people, 
freed from their old corruption and entering upon a 
new career in the Lord's service. By the apparently 
casual circumstance here recorded, Israel was in the 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 109 



providence of God obliged at this time to eat that 
bread of purity, which the commemorative feast 
would in future years require. Unleavened bread 
being thus associated with the very circumstances of 
the exodus, became in every way a reminder of the 
great deliverance wrought and of the obligations 
which it involved. So that it is not even necessary 
with Dillmann to assume that the passage recording 
the institution of this feast, 12 : 14-20, has been 
transposed by the Redactor from its true position 
after the exodus had actually taken place ; for which 
he pleads the past tense of the verb, 12 : 17, " this 
self-same day have I brought your armies out of the 
land of Egypt "; where, however, the tense is the 
same as when God says to Abraham before Isaac 
was born, Gen. 15 : 18, " Unto thy seed have I given 
this land." 

But it is said that a commemorative service could 
not be ordained before the event to be commemo- 
rated had occurred. It is obvious to refer to the 
analogous instance of the Lord's Supper. And fur- 
ther, in its original observance the Passover was not 
a commemoration, but a preservative against the com- 
ing plague. The sneering suggestions that the blood 
on the door-posts was put there to enable the LORD 
to distinguish the houses of the Israelites, and that 
it would be no protection from a pestilence, only 
show how utterly this most appropriate and signifi- 
cant transaction has been misconceived. The whole 
symbolic ceremonial with its expiation by the blood 
of sprinkling is open to the same ignorant condemna- 
tion. 



1 10 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



The direction " not to go out of the door of their 
house till the morning," 12 : 22, comp. ver. io, rests, 
we are told, upon a different conception of the time 
of the exodus from vs. 31, 42, according to which 
they went out of Egypt by night. As both the 
Elohist passages, Ex. 12 : 17, 41, 51, Num. 33 : 3, and 
those assigned to the Jehovist, Ex. 13:4, speak of the 
day of the Exodus and refer it to the morrow after the 
Passover, Dillmann concludes that this nocturnal exit 
must belong to a third writer, the other Elohist. But 
we find both the Jehovist, n 14, 5, 12 : 29, and the 
Elohist, 12:12, combining in the statement that the 
first-born were smitten in the night ; while in Num. 
3 : 13, 8 : 17, which by common critical consent be- 
longs likewise to the Elohist, he speaks of " the day" 
in which the Lord smote all the first-born in Egypt. 
If " night " and " day " can in this instance be inter- 
changed without requiring the assumption of a dif- 
ferent writer, why not in the other parallel instance 
likewise ? So that we have little difficulty in assum- 
ing that "day" may be used in an indefinite sense 
for the time of an event irrespective of the hour of 
its occurrence, — or in a wide sense so as to be inclu- 
sive of the night, — or that the undefined period 
when night is passing into day may be indifferently 
spoken of as either. 

But it is further affirmed that the narrative is not 
only inconsistent with the laws here recorded, but 
with itself. Hupfeld points out what he considers a 
serious discrepancy in respect to time. In 1 1 : 4 ff. 
Moses announces to Pharaoh that at midnight all the 
first-born in the land of Egypt shall die : this must, 



THE UNITY GF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. m 



therefore, have been on the 14th day of the month, 
the plague of the first-born having been inflicted in 
the following night. And yet in the succeeding chap- 
ter the LORD directs what is to be done on the 10th 
of the month, 12:3; at the same time and in the 
same continuous context he says, " I will pass through 
the land of Egypt this night/' ver. 12, and further 
goes on to say, " in this self-same day have I brought 
your armies out of the land of Egypt," ver. 17, as 
though it was the day after the plague, and the exodus 
was already accomplished. Here, it is said, there is an 
utter confusion of time. The 10th, 14th and 15th 
days of the month are all jumbled together in the 
most inexplicable manner. 

But if the interpreter will only use a little common 
sense, he will find that there is no confusion what- 
ever, but a perfectly clear and orderly arrangement. 
In the chapters preceding the twelfth there is a con- 
tinuous account of the plagues with which the LORD 
had smitten Egypt in terrible succession. The writer 
proceeds with his narrative, not interrupting it with 
extraneous matter, until he reaches Moses' announce- 
ment to Pharaoh of the last decisive stroke, which 
would set Israel free. Here he pauses to introduce 
the Passover, which played so important a part in 
saving Israel from the destruction of that fatal night, 
which symbolized in the most impressive way their 
new character and new T relation to Jehovah, and 
which was to be the standing memorial in all future 
time of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the 
birthday of their national existence, and their conse- 
cration to Jehovah as his people. In order to give a 



112 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



connected view of this great national and divinely 
appointed institution, he goes back a few days to the 
original direction given by the LORD to Moses on the 
ioth day of the month, which he could not have men- 
tioned before without breaking the unity of his pre- 
vious narrative, and dealing with the subject of the 
Passover in a disjointed and fragmentary way. When 
in the course of what the LORD then said to Moses, 
he speaks of passing through Egypt "this night" to 
smite the first-born, the night referred to belongs 
not to the day on which he is speaking, but that of 
which he is speaking, the 14th day, mentioned just 
before, on the evening of which the Passover was to 
be slain, and it is the day, which then began accord- 
ing to the Jewish mode of reckoning, in which he 
speaks of bringing the armies of Israel out of Egypt. 

This also relieves George's objection that Moses 
announces to Pharaoh God's purpose to smite the 
first-born, 11:4, whereas the LORD does not himself 
reveal it to Moses until the following chapter, 12 : 12 ; 
this chapter, however, dates back at least four days 
before ch. 11. Besides it does not appear that 12 : 12 
was the first disclosure of God's purpose to Moses, 
comp. 4: 23. It is here introduced not for the sake 
of informing him of the fact, but as the reason for 
the institution of the Passover. 

According to 10 : 28, 29, Moses was not to see 
Pharaoh's face again ; and yet after that, 12 131, he 
called for Moses and Aaron and bade them go forth 
with the children of Israel ; the simple explanation 
of Avhich is that by a familiar usage of language, the 
king is said to do himself what he did through the 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 113 



instrumentality of others. And the principle is the 
same when the smiting of the first-born is attributed 
to the LORD, 1 1 : 4, 12 : 12, 29, and also to the destroy- 
ing angel, 12 123, whose agency he employed. It is 
also urged that 12:31-33 contains a representation 
peculiar to the Jehovist, and in which he differs in a 
marked manner from the Elohist. According to 
these verses Pharaoh grants to Moses all that he had 
asked, viz., that they might go forth to hold a feast 
unto the LORD ; and the Egyptians and Pharaoh are 
urgent upon the people to have them leave. Where- 
as, according to the Elohist, Moses had from the first 
demanded that Pharaoh should let the people go un- 
conditionally, 7:2; and the LORD himself would lead 
them out in spite of Pharaoh's continued refusal, 
7:4, 5. But there is no such diversity as is here pre- 
tended. In order that Pharaoh's unreasonable obsti- 
nacy might be set in the strongest light, the only de- 
mand made upon him is that he should let the people 
go three days' journey into the wilderness that they 
might sacrifice to the LORD. There is not a single 
passage in which the request is put in any different 
form. The phrase "let my people go," 7:14, 8:2, 
9 : 2, etc., alternates in Jehovah passages with the fuller 
phrase, " let my people go that they may serve me," 
7 : 16, 8 : 1, 9 : 1, etc. And there is no reason for un- 
derstanding it differently in the only two passages in 
which the critics assign it to the Elohist, 7:2, 11 : 10. 
And if Pharaoh and the Egyptians drove Israel out 
contrary to their native inclination and under a divine 
constraint, how does this differ from the declaration, 
7:4, that he would lay his hand upon Egypt and 
8 



U 4 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



bring forth his people ? The two are not only per- 
fectly consistent, but the divine purpose was effected 
by compelling Pharaoh to co-operate in its accom- 
plishment. 1 

As the result of this examination, I think it may 
be unhesitatingly affirmed that the discrepancies al- 
leged in these chapters are mere captious criticism, and 
afford no ground for the assumption of diversity of 
authors, much less for contesting the truth and accu- 
racy of the record. 

But it is further claimed that there is such a want 
of connection, such evident dislocations and abrupt 
transitions as show that these chapters could not 
have been originally written as they now stand. The 
present condition of the text can only be attributed 
to a Redactor who has pieced together into one narra- 
tive what were originally separate histories by differ- 
ent writers. 

Thus it is urged that 12 : 14 does not connect with 
what immediately precedes. It speaks of "this day" 
being a memorial, when no day had been referred to, 
but only the night of the plague. Kayser, therefore, 
throws out vs. 11-13 and connects it directly with 
ver. 10. Hupfeld proposes to substitute ver. 42 in 
its place; he then puts ver. 15 after 19, and ver. 17 
after 20, and transposes the entire paragraph, vs. 
14-20, thus rearranged so as to stand at the end of 
the chapter after ver. 41. Dillmann complains of the 
isolation of ver. 42, but admits that the pronouns 
show that it does not belong after ver. 13, where 
Hupfeld would place it. He gives it to the other 

1 See Bachmann, " Festgesetze," p> 63, 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 115 



Elohist, without being able to find any connection 
for it there. He does not approve of Hupfeld's trans- 
positions in the body of vs. 14-20, but locates the 
entire paragraph after ver. 41, supposing it to have 
been occasioned by Israel having to leave Egypt with- 
out leavening their bread, vs. 34, 39. This fact, how- 
ever, is only mentioned by the Jehovist, as Dillmann 
partitions the verses ; which makes it necessary to 
assume that the Elohist had said the very sams thing, 
only his account has not been preserved. 

But really these critics give themselves a needless 
amount of trouble for very small reason. The "day" 
spoken of in ver. 14 is the one of which the night of 
the plague, which had just been alluded to, formed 
a part in the ordinary Jewish reckoning. And the 
allegation is doubtless in the main correct that the 
feast, which in this verse they are required to keep, is 
the seven days of Unleavened Bread, which the writer 
thus links to what he had before said of the Passover ; 
though the confident affirmation that the Passover 
could not properly be called "a feast" is refuted by 
Ex. 34:25, comp. also the Hebrew form of the par- 
allel passage Ex. 23 : 18, and Isa. 30:29. In ver. 42, 
Dillmann adopts Wellhausen's conceit that " a night to 
be observed " should be rendered " a night of watch- 
ing," this sense being forced upon a word that no- 
where else occurs, for the sake of thus creating a new 
conception of the mode of celebrating the night, dif- 
ferent from all that preceded, and different it may be 
added from all the rest of Scripture, for Isa. 30 : 29 
affords it no justification. Deut. 16: 1, with its plain 
allusion to this verse, is sufficient to show that the 



Il6 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



common rendering is correct, and instead of its stand- 
ing " isolated/' it really gathers up in one emphatic 
utterance the spirit of all that precedes it. The night, 
of which it speaks, is included in the day of the fore- 
going verse; and that memorable day and night have 
been ringing through the entire chapter. 

It has been argued that the introductory verse of 
ch. 12 sounds like an entirely new beginning, as 
though what follows was an independent paragraph, 
standing in no relation to anything before it. It 
marks the transition to a new topic, but is never- 
theless a link of connection w T ith the preceding. In 
summing up the narrative of the antecedent plagues, 
11:9, 10, the LORD had declared his purpose to mul- 
tiply his wonders in the land of Egypt. In direct con- 
tinuation the writer proceeds to declare what the LORD 
had further done " in the land of Egypt " in fulfilment 
of this design. This objection properly has its place 
only in the old exploded fragmentary hypothesis, 
which regarded every title, or subscription to any sec- 
tion, as evidence of its separate and independent ex- 
istence. The documentary hypothesis now in vogue 
is obliged to regard them more correctly as indicating 
convenient subdivisions of the subject matter and in- 
troduced for the sake of clearness, but no proof of any 
lack of continuity. 

It is further contended that there are several para- 
graphs in these chapters w r hich are but loosely con- 
nected with the general thread of discourse, and may 
be sundered from it without being missed, and whose 
removal will really improve the connection by restor- 
ing a continuity which they only obstruct. Such pas- 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 117 



sages, it is claimed, are clearly interpolations and can 
not have belonged to the text as at first written ; they 
indicate that narratives originally distinct have been 
blended together in the existing text. Thus George 
points out that 12: 1-28 sunders the declaration of 
God's purpose to slay the first-born from its execu- 
tion. It is, therefore, an interpolation, and in the 
course of it other interpolations occur, as ver. 2, vs. 
8-1 1, and vs. 14-20 ; vs. 43-50 are similarly condemned. 
Wellhausen throws out as later additions 12:21-27, 
13:3-16. 

Every parenthetic statement, every digression for 
the sake of introducing what was not precisely in the 
line of previous remarks, however important in its 
bearing upon it, is unhesitatingly rejected as an inter- 
polation. No writing was ever produced that could 
not be torn to pieces by such treatment. Passages 
can be sundered from the most closely concatenated 
discourse without the reader being aware of the omis- 
sion. These chapters are clearly continuous ; they 
pursue one constant aim. Nothing is irrelevant to 
the main theme. There is no lack of coherence in 
the several parts. Every paragraph and sentence adds 
something to the completeness of the view which the 
writer is presenting, and contributes to the general 
effect of the whole. The critics impute this to the 
skill of the Redactor, or final editor, who has selected 
his materials and put them together with admirable 
adroitness. But if he has really done what they at- 
tribute to him, he has performed the most marvellous 
feat in all literary history. He has taken two or more 
writings prepared quite independently of each other, 



1 1 8 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



on different plans and with different aims and tenden- 
cies, and preserving the identical language of each 
unchanged, he has fitted them together like a choice 
piece of mosaic, producing what has all the appear- 
ance of one self-consistent, indivisible record, and was 
universally so regarded until under the critical micro- 
scope its infinitesimal seams and sutures were de- 
tected. According to Dillmann he drew ver. 28 from 
A; 29, 30 from C; 31-33 from B; 34-36 fromC; 37a 
from A; 37 38 from B; 39 from C; 40, 41 from A; 
42 from B ; and out of all this patchwork he has 
wrought a seemingly continuous fabric. The wonder 
is that a writer who was capable of performing a task 
like this should have imposed such needless trammels 
upon himself, and have worked in such a purely me- 
chanical way, instead of doing what could have been 
done with much less labor and with a more satisfac- 
tory result, recasting the materials furnished by his 
sources in the mould of his own thoughts and bring- 
ing forth a narrative of his own. 

It is further asserted that there are repetitions in 
these chapters, which justify the assumption that dis- 
tinct narratives have here been combined, and parallel 
accounts of the same transactions have been retained 
from each. Thus apart from the supplementary law of 
the Passover, 12 : 43-49, which the critics themselves 
recognize as such, there are here two passages that 
contain directions about the Passover, two about Un- 
leavened Bread, and two about consecrating the first- 
born. But these are not superfluous repetitions in 
any case. God first gives the law to Moses, which 
Moses afterward repeats to the people. Neither of 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 119 



these would be complete without the other. No one 
surely but a critic who has a hypothesis to support 
would dream of rending them asunder, and assigning 
them to distinct documents. Ch. 12 : 35, 36, is not 
a needless repetition of what had already been said, 
11:2, 3 ; the latter is the divine direction, which, 
when the proper time arrived, the people obeyed 
with a result which had already been foretold, 3:21, 
22, each passage having its own special appropriate- 
ness in its place. And the evident reference of one 
to the other and their close verbal correspondence 
proves rather that they are of the same origin, and 
that they belong to the same continuous record. Ch. 
12 : 51 repeats the last clause of ver. 41, but it is for 
the sake of resuming the narrative after a brief di- 
gression, just as is done, 6 : 28-30, comp. vs. 10-12. 

In the simple style of Hebrew narrative it is not 
unusual for the writer to dwell upon matters of 
special interest, recurring to them and restating them 
that his readers may be more impressed by their 
magnitude and their consequence. It hence results 
that in connection with the recital of stupendous 
events like the flood, the plagues of Egypt, the cross- 
ing of the Jordan, and the exodus, there is an amount 
of repetition, of which the critics are not slow to 
avail themselves, that they may make out the show 
of a double narrative. But if the Redactor could 
introduce so many repetitions, why might not the 
original writer? The fact is that repetitions are found 
in each of the so-called documents taken singly, such 
as are elsewhere made the pretext for division. 
There are instances of this even in these chapters. 



120 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



Ch. 12 : 19 repeats what had already been stated in 
ver. 15 ; and ver. 17 what had been said in ver. 14; 
though all belong to the Elohist. 

But with all the liberties taken of sundering what 
plainly belongs together, and though passages are 
pressed into the service as duplicates which are not 
such, still serious gaps remain in the alleged docu- 
ments. Thus the smiting of the first-born is threat- 
ened in the Elohist, 12 : 12, 23, but this document 
contains no record of its having been performed. It 
passes at once from the observance of the Passover, 
ver. 28, to the unexplained statement, ver. 37, 14 The 
children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Suc- 
coth," with no intimation of what had happened in 
the interval. Yet from Num. 3:13, 8:17, 33:4, 
passages belonging to the Elohist, it is plain that the 
smiting of the first-born had been mentioned before ; 
but that mention is only found in the Jehovist. 
Kayser insists that 12:37*2 is indispensable to the 
Jehovist ; but the majority of the critics are agreed 
from the reference to it in Num. 33 : 5, that it must 
belong to the Elohist. If this be so, then the Je- 
hovist speaks, ver. 39, of Israel having brought forth 
their dough out of Egypt, without any previous in- 
timation of their having left the country themselves ; 
and he speaks incidentally, 13 : 17, of Pharaoh hav- 
ing let the people go, with no prior mention that he 
had done so. And upon Kayser s own division the 
Jehovist explains, 12 : 11, how the Passover is to be 
eaten without any intimation of what the Passover 
was or any direction to prepare it. 

We have now reviewed what the critics have to 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 12 1 



say in favor of parcelling these chapters among dif- 
ferent writers, so far as that is based upon an analysis 
of the chapters themselves, the connection of thought 
and the relation of the several parts. We have found 
that by sundering them on different lines of division, 
they could bring out very various representations 
of what these assumed writers severally contained ; 
which simply proves that the part is not equal to 
the whole, and that different portions of a narrative 
taken separately do not contain the same identical 
things. The alleged, discrepancies in the laws, as 
well as those which are alleged in the narrative, and 
those which are said to exist between the laws and 
the narrative, prove upon examination to admit of 
ready reconciliation. The charge of a lack of con- 
nection between the parts, such as might imply dis- 
location or interpolation, turns out to be groundless. 
The repetitions, real or pretended, give no such indi- 
cation of parallel narratives as might awaken the sus- 
picion that different accounts have been blended. I 
think it may be safely said, notwithstanding the 
persistence and ingenuity with which these points are 
urged by the critics, that they do not severally or 
collectively yield any support to the divisive hypoth- 
esis, so far as these chapters are concerned. I shall 
not refer in confirmation of this opinion to those 
who while eminent in critical learning have sturdily 
defended the old-fashioned views of the authority, 
inspiration and genuineness of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, lest they might be thought partial in their 
judgments in this matter. But I may refer to scholars 
who are certainly competent to judge in a question 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



of this sort, and who, themselves adherents of the di- 
visive hypothesis, can not be suspected of any undue 
leaning to traditional opinions. Thus Winer 1 says, 
" The origin of the feast is certainly veiled in the 
dress of the miraculous, Ex. 12 : 12 f., 29 ff.," which to 
him of course means the incredible ; but he adds : 
" I can not find actual contradictions or a double nar- 
rative in that chapter." And Bertheau 2 says, " The 
entire 12th chapter of Exodus gives a connected nar- 
rative; nowhere is there the slightest trace of dis- 
order; nowhere anything that can justify the sus- 
picion that any one verse stands out of relation to 
the whole." 

1 " Biblisches Realworterbuch," 1848, art. Pascha, II., p. 197. 

2 44 Die sieben Gruppen Mosaischer Gesetze," p. 58. 



IV. 

THE UNITY OF EXODUS, 
CHAPTERS 12, 13,— (Continued). 



IV. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CHAPTERS 12, 13, 

(continued). 

7"E have considered the question of the unity of 



V V Exodus, chapters 12, 13, so far as this is re- 
lated to the contents of these chapters. After 
patiently listening to all that the critics have to allege 
from this quarter, we have discovered no reason for 
suspecting a diversity of writers. To all appearance 
they form one coherent and consistent narrative, such 
as might be supposed to come from one mind and 
from one pen. It is written with one evident design 
that is steadfastly adhered to throughout, and to 
which all the parts in their measure contribute. All 
is skilfully arranged, and the whole develops regularly 
from first to last. There is unity of purpose and 
plan, and unity of execution ; and so far as can be 
judged from this point of view, we must infer unity 
of authorship. 

The unity of these chapters has likewise been as- 
sailed, however, from another side, that of diction and 
style. It is said that there are such differences in the 
use of words and phrases in different sections of these 
chapters as betray the characteristic habits of distinct 
writers. It will be necessary consequently to examine 
what is alleged upon this point before we can reach a 
settled conclusion. 




(125) 



126 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



Before proceeding to do this, two preliminary re- 
marks should be made. 

I. The burden of proof lies wholly upon those 
critics who affirm diversity of authorship. The ante- 
cedent presumption is all decidedly the other way. 
These chapters form a component part of a book 
which has from the beginning been uniformly ascribed 
to one writer. They are certainly one so far that they 
have a common theme, which is consistently and con- 
secutively treated. The most minute and searching 
examination has failed to detect anything inconsistent 
with this conclusion. If, now, it is contended that 
the diction and the phraseology of these chapters es- 
tablish diversity of authorship, the proof demanded 
should be clear and strong on the one hand in pro- 
portion to the counter-evidence which has already 
been adduced, and which is to be overcome, and on 
the other to the ambiguity and doubt which is apt to 
overhang this species of proof. There is nothing 
about which experts will differ more seriously than 
the identity of handwriting, unless the case is so evi- 
dent as to be beyond dispute. And so with identity 
of style, unless the indications are of the clearest sort. 
They who have the longest and most intimate famili- 
arity with an author, may often be in doubt whether 
a given passage is from his pen, if it is to be judged 
of from style alone, unless it exhibits some marked 
eccentricities or peculiarities of manner. The diffi- 
culty is of course enhanced when the question con- 
cerns an author in a foreign tongue and belonging to 
a distant age, from which we have few literary remains. 
There is great and palpable danger of drawing wrong 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 127 



conclusions from plausible appearances, which are to 
be accounted for in another way. The issue, how- 
ever, is a simple one. There is no evidence of di- 
versity of authorship, unless it is found in differences 
of style and language. Are these differences of such 
a nature, and withal so clear and unambiguous that 
they warrant the setting aside of all the accumu- 
lated evidences of their unity? 

My 2d observation is, that the discussion must at 
present be limited to the chapters before us. We 
can not in the time now at our disposal undertake to 
range over the entire question of the unity of the 
Pentateuch and the possible existence of two Elohists, 
a Jehovist, a Deuteronomist and a Redactor, together 
with those other minor characters that the varied exi- 
gencies of the divisive hypothesis in different hands 
have summoned to its service. We confine our atten- 
tion simply to these two chapters and the application 
of the methods and results of the divisive criticism to 
them. We are not now dealing with the hypothesis 
on the whole, except in so far as it is complicated 
with this particular passage. And as we do not mean 
to draw any conclusion beyond that which our 
premises warrant, we shall not pronounce upon the 
hypothesis at large, except in so far as the maxim 
holds, Ex uno disce omnes. 

Knobel, who has shown the most extraordinary 
and painstaking diligence in accumulating and tabu- 
lating the criteria of authorship, has drawn out most 
formidable lists of words and phrases, alleged to be 
severally peculiar to the Elohist and the Jehovist. 
Dillmann, who follows in the same line, points out 



128 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



twenty or more in the Elohist sections of these chapters 
and qu ite a nu mber in the Jehovist sections, as indicative 
respectively of these two classes of sections elsewhere. 

The first impression produced by such an exhibit 
is that this matter is altogether overdone and the 
search has been quite too successful. It is out of all 
reasonable probability that so many distinct criteria 
of style should be heaped together in so small a com- 
pass. A more sparing display of evidences would 
have been really more impressive. Shiploads of yel- 
low earth are not so plausible a counterfeit of gold as 
though the material were less abundant. The words 
here gathered up are the proper ones to express the 
thought which the writer has to convey, and for which 
in many cases it might be difficult to substitute any 
other. They belong to the common stock of the 
language, of which no one writer has the monopoly. 
That a particular writer has used one or more of 
these words before, is not necessarily a proof that 
another passage containing them is from him, nor 
need it create any prejudice against his authorship of 
a particular passage that it does not chance to con- 
tain them. This whole critical process tacitly assumes 
that the same writer must constantly use the same 
words that he has used before and no others. And 
this test is applied in a purely mechanical manner, 
and in disregard of the fact that modified forms of 
speech are not invariably suggestive of distinct 
authorship ; they may indicate a difference in the 
shade of thought intended ; and some variety of ex- 
pression must be allowed to a writer who has any fa- 
cility in the use of language. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 129 



In estimating the conclusiveness of this critical 
reasoning for the purpose for which it is adduced, it 
should further be considered that whatever positive 
and constructive force there may be in the arguments 
employed, is equally available in defending the unity 
of the whole. It is only their negative and more in- 
tangible and inconclusive side which even seems to 
lie against it. So far as the long lists of words and 
phrases gathered up as characteristic of one or other 
of the alleged documents tend to establish a mutual 
relation or common authorship of the particular sec- 
tions which compose it, they serve a valuable purpose 
for him who maintains the common authorship of 
both, for the whole includes its parts. The only 
thing in the argumentation of the critics that need 
be disputed in the interest of unity, is the hasty and 
unwarranted conclusion which they draw from the 
absence of certain words from one class of sections 
that are found in the other class. And this is clearly 
invalid, provided the fact can be reasonably explained 
on other grounds than diversity of authorship. 

The delusive character of these critical lists of 
words appears from the readiness with which such 
lists can be made out of any length where they have 
no possible significance. If two paragraphs be selected 
at random in the writings of any author, there will 
inevitably be words in each which are not in the 
other. Let this be assumed to be evidence that they 
are the productions of different writers, and that the 
words and phrases peculiar to each are characteristic 
of these writers severally. Then from these para- 
graphs as a starting-point let the examination be 
9 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



extended in succession to other paragraphs and sec- 
tions of the same author, and these be assigned to 
one or other of these writers according as they do or 
do not contain the characteristic expressions already- 
determined upon for each, the list of peculiar terms 
and phrases growing as the work proceeds. You 
have here the whole process by which the divisive 
hypothesis was originated. While proceeding cau- 
tiously step by step and with the most scrupulous 
regard apparently to scientific exactness, the authors 
of the hypothesis have themselves created the very 
phenomena to which they point as triumphantly 
establishing it. The division has been made on a 
given assumption, and why should it be thought ex- 
traordinary, if when completed it accords with that 
assumption ? Particular words and phrases are made 
the criterion for determining what belongs to a given 
writer. Every paragraph, sentence and even clause 
containing any of these is in consequence successively 
assigned to this writer ; and when the process is com- 
plete, the critic claims that as a demonstration which 
is after all only his own work. The partition corre- 
sponds with the hypothesis simply because it was 
made by the hypothesis. Whatever plausibility the 
latter possesses is due not to its resting on a solid 
basis of fact, but to the extraordinary ingenuity with 
which it has been devised and executed. If by persist- 
ent pains and incessant correction the critics should 
finally succeed in making it entirely self-consistent, 
what independent evidence is there after all of its 
truth ? 

We pass now to the consideration of the particular 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 131 

words and phrases in the chapters before us, which 
are held to be indicative of different hypothetical 
writers. 

A number of those that are credited to the Elohist 
are adduced in the following passage extracted from 
Noldeke : 1 " The ritual of the Passover is here intro- 
duced in the first instance, indeed, only for the Israel- 
ites at their exodus ; but as Abraham receives the 
law of circumcision in the first instance, which is 
then immediately extended to all his descendants, 
so too it is here. We have accordingly the second 
example of legal language, which prevails further on 
in the ritual laws, comp., e.g., Q^i^^n VH (between 
the evenings), Ex. 12:6; Qbry ftpn Q^JTnb (in 
your generations an ordinance forever), vs. 14, 17, so 
Gen. 17:7; HHp fcOpfa (holy convocation), ver. 16 ; 
fcOPin ffiSSil nfnWl (that soul shall be cut off), ver. 
19 ; Gen. 17 : 14, etc. It should specially be mentioned 
that here in the first law concerning religion given 
to the entire people, the expression f]1S, ' congrega- 
tion ' (all the congregation of Israel), occurs for the 
first time, which thenceforward becomes for the 
Grundschrift (Elohist) a standing designation of the 
assembled people, whilst he very seldom uses the 
simple (people, but see Num. 33:17; Ex. 17 : 1)." 
To which may be added from Dillmann's lists the 
following additional legal phrases, all which are in 
the Pentateuch restricted exclusively to legal sections, 
viz., QD^tlitEnfa (in all your habitations), Ex. 

12 : 20; so 35 : 3 ; Lev. 3 : 17, 7 : 26, 23 : 3, 14, 21, 31 ; 
Num. 35:29; -oi-'p (stranger), Ex. 12:43; so 
1 " Untersuchungen," p. 41. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



Gen. 17:12, 27; Lev. 22:25; Eps-fOpft (bought 
for money), ver. 44; so Gen. 17:12, 13, 23, 27; 
y*l^n rnT& (born in the land), vs. 19, 48, 49, and oc- 
curring several times in Leviticus and Numbers. 
But inasmuch as these words and phrases are pe- 
culiar to the ritual law, and the whole of that law is 
assigned to the Elohist, what else could be expected 
than that they should occur only in the Elohist sec- 
tions and never in those of the Jehovist ? If these 
words and such as these can be pleaded in evidence 
of diversity of authorship, then it would not be diffi- 
cult to prove upon the same principles that no legis- 
lator can write anything except law. We might take 
Mr. Gladstone's bills for the pacification of Ireland, 
for the extension of suffrage and other measures 
introduced during his administration, and discover- 
ing in them large numbers of legal terms and phrases 
which are nowhere to be found in his " Studies on 
Homer and the Homeric Age," demonstrate with as 
much cogency as there is in the critical argument 
which we are now examining, that this latter work 
has been falsely ascribed to the distinguished prime 
minister. If the uniform absence of these words from 
every paragraph of the Elohist himself which is not 
devoted to ceremonial legislation does not prevent 
them from being reckoned his, what is there peculiar 
in the fact that they are likewise absent from all the 
paragraphs of the Jehovist, to whom no ceremonial 
legislation is assigned ? We may, therefore, dismiss 
this class of words entirely as having no bearing 
whatever upon the question, whether the so-called 
Jehovist sections of these chapters are by another 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



hand than the Elohist sections ; and only remark in 
passing that in some instances it is only by the 
smallest possible loophole that admissions are evaded 
which are at variance with the hypothesis. Thus 
the Elohist, 12 : 14, speaks of the Passover as " an 
ordinance forever," and this expression is reckoned 
among those which are peculiar to his style ; the 
Jehovist, indeed, ver. 24, calls it " an ordinance to 
thee and to thy sons forever," but this it is claimed 
is such a deviation from the preceding that it can not 
be regarded as identical. 

Of the other words which Dillmann reckons pecu- 
liar to the Elohist there occur in 12 -.4 a verb and a 
noun of kindred signification. The former "|£Qft 
(make your count) only occurs this once in the whole 
Old Testament. The noun ntQfa (number) occurs 
but once elsewhere, and that in the ritual law, Lev. 
27 : 23. Another derivative is found in but a single 
passage, Num. 31 : 28, 37-41, and that in a ritual con- 
nection, where it is applied to the " tribute " paid to 
the sanctuary from the spoils of war. These are cer- 
tainly removed by the infrequency of their occur- 
rence from the category of favorite expressions, and 
hence afford no indication of the writer's habitual 
style. Moreover, their exclusive connection with the 
ritual law prevents us from looking for them in the 
Jehovist sections. A prepositional phrase in the 
same verse, 12 14, ig^ (according to), is also classed as 
Elohistic. This occurs in the whole Pentateuch in 
this sense eight times, 1 four of which only are outside 

1 Gen. 47 : 12 ; Ex. 12 14, 16 : 16, 18 ; Lev. 25 : 16, 27 : 16 ; Num. 
9 : 17, 26: 54. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



of legal sections. Knobel is alone in assigning the 
first of these, Gen. 47: 12, to the Elohist ; Hupfeld, 
Schrader, Noldeke, Kayser and Dillmann agree that 
the verse is not his. The second and third, Ex. 
16 : 16, 18, are not his either, according to Wellhausen. 
So that if we admit the authority of this latter critic 
the phrase in question belongs to the Elohist but 
once out of the four times that it is found in any 
other than a legal section. We can hardly accept 
this, therefore, as a distinctive criterion of his style. 
Again we are pointed to 11535, (soul), in the sense of 
"person," vs. 4, 15, 16, 19; but this is not peculiar to 
the Elohist, for the Jehovist so uses it, Gen. 2:7, 
and according to Schrader and Kayser in Josh. 
io:28ff., 11: 11 likewise; and there is a general 
agreement also that Gen. 14:21 does not belong to 
the Elohist. Another criterion is t3^t03tl5 (judgments) 
which occurs in all in the Pentateuch four times, 1 and 
always in relation to the inflictions divinely sent upon 
Egypt, and this is the only word which is used in this 
precise sense in the Pentateuch; ftitoSHJfa, which 
is of frequent occurrence, and is rendered by the 
same English equivalent, is not used in these books 
in the sense of a divine infliction, but of a judicial 
sentence or an ordinance. Most of the critics claim 
iPEDSU) in each of these four cases for the Elohist; 
but Kayser assigns one, Ex. 12 : 12, to the Jehovist. 
As the thought is not expressed in other Jehovist 
sections, there is no occasion for the use of the word. 
It is further reckoned a peculiarity of the Elohist 
that he applies the term Jm&SJi (armies) to the Is- 
1 Ex. 6 : 6, 7 : 4, 12 : 12 ; Num. 33 : 4. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 135 



raelites, Ex. 12: 17, 41, 51 ; so 6:26, 7:4, and else- 
where. But the Jehovist also uses this word in ap- 
plication to the Philistine army, Gen. 26: 26, and Gen. 
21 :22, 32 is not Elohistic ; that it does not chance 
to be found in a Jehovist section in application to 
Israel must be purely accidental, since he uses other 
military terms in relation to them, showing that he 
regarded them as an army, e.g., 13:18 (Schrader) har- 
nessed, or prepared for war, 14: 19, 20 (Kayser) camp. 
It is claimed that j-Jfan^il OH&i (°f man an< 3 °f 
beast), Ex. 13:2, is an Elohistic expression, but the 
Jehovist combines the same terms, though with a 
different preposition, Ex. 9:25, 13: 15, and the EIo- 
hist also adopts this latter form, 12:12. 

Two expressions are yet to be mentioned, upon 
which the critics lay great stress, claiming them with 
confidence, and as it might at first sight appear, with 
some plausibility, as characteristic of the Elohist. 
One is idiomatically used in the sense of u self- 
same," Ex. 12 : 17, 41, 51 ; and the other iqj^ *|D * n 
the pleonastic declaration " they did as the LORD 
commanded ; so did they," vs. 28, 50. The former 
unique expression occurs nine times 1 besides in the 
Pentateuch, uniformly in Elohist passages ; it also oc- 
curs once in an Elohist passage in Joshua (5:11) and 
nowhere in any subsequent book of the Old Testa- 
ment with the exception of four times in Ezekiel, 2 
whose priestly familiarity with the law shows itself so 
freely in the adoption of its language, and even the 

l Gen. 7 : 13, 17 : 23, 26 ; Lev. 23 : 14, 21, 28, 29, 30 ; Deut. 
32 : 48. 

2 Ezek. 2:3, 24 : 2 bis, 40 : 1. 



136 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



revival of its obsolete words and phrases. It is an 
emphatic form of speech, which was but sparingly 
used and limited, as a brief inspection will show, to 
important epochs whose exact time is thus signalized. 
It marks two momentous days in the history, that on 
which Noah entered into the ark, Gen. 7:13, and 
that on which Moses, the leader and legislator of 
Israel, went up Mount Nebo to die, Deut. 32 148. It 
is used twice in connection with the original institu- 
tion of circumcision in the family of Abraham, Gen. 
17:23,26; three times in the chapters before us of 
the day that the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, 
and five times in Lev. 23, the chapter ordaining the 
sacred festivals, to mark severally the day on which 
the sheaf of the first-fruits was presented in the Pass- 
over week, ver. 14, (which is emphasized afresh on the 
observance of the first Passover in Canaan, Josh. 
5:11); also the day on which the two wave loaves 
were brought at the feast of Weeks, ver. 21 ; and 
with triple repetition the great day of Atonement, vs. 
28-30. If now all the emphatic moments calling for 
the use of this phrase have by the critics been given 
to the Elohist, it might not seem surprising if the 
Jehovist had not employed it at all. And yet it is 
found once in an admitted Jehovist section, Josh. 
10 : 27, 1 showing that it can have place in these sec- 
tions as well as the others, if there is occasion for its 
employment. This word consequently affords no 
ground of discrimination and no plea for division. 
The other Elohist expression above referred to ac- 

1 Schrader and Kayser assign this verse to the Jehovist ; Knobel 
to his Kriegsbuch. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



cords, it is said, with his formal, precise and repetitious 
style. It occurs eleven times 1 in the Pentateuch, 
and in a slightly modified form twice more ; and in 
every single instance it is referred by the critics to 
the Elohist. It is not once found in a Jehovist sec- 
tion. The impression which such a statement is cal- 
culated to produce, is not a little diminished, however, 
when we inquire a little further into the actual state 
of the case. 

I. This expression is not to be regarded as unmean- 
ing tautology and dismissed as the mere habit of a 
diffuse and repetitious writer. In the vast majority 
of instances in which attention is drawn to the cor- 
respondence of action with the divine command, the 
Elohist himself uses a briefer formula ; often simply 
"as the LORD commanded," 2 or " they did as the 
LORD commanded/' 3 or " they did so as the LORD 
commanded, " 4 or " as the LORD commanded, so they 
did/' 6 The larger and fuller form, "they did accord- 
ing to all that the LORD commanded them, so did 

1 Gen. 6 : 22 ; Ex. 7:6, 12 : 28, 50, 39 : 32, 43, 40 : 16 ; Num. 

1 : 54, 8 : 20, 17 : 11 ; and with a slight modification, Num. 2 : 34, 
5:4. 

2 Gen. 7 : 16, 21:4; Ex. 16 : 34, 39 : 1, 5, 7, 21, 26, 29, 31, 40 : 19, 
21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 32 ; Lev. 8 : 9, 13, 17, 21, 29, 9 : 10 ; Num. 1 : 19, 

2 :33, 3:42, 51, 4:49, 15:36, 20:9, 31:7, 41, 47; Josh. 21: 8. 
Not in Elohist sections, Gen. 7:9; Ex. 34 : 4 ; Josh. 10 : 40. 

3 Lev. 8:4, 16 : 34 ; Num. 20 : 27, 27 : 22, 31:31; Deut. 34 : 9, and 
with a slight modification Ex. 38 : 22, Lev. 8 : 36, Jehovist Gen. 7 : 5. 
Knobel assigns Lev. 24 : 23 to his Kriegsbuch, others give it to the 
Elohist. 

4 Ex. 7 : 10, 20 ; Num. 8 : 3. 

5 Ex. 39 : 42 ; Num. 8 : 22, 9 : 5, 36 : 10 ; Josh. 14 : 5. Jehovist, or 
according to Knobel, the Kriegsbuch, Josh. 11 : 15. 



1 38 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



they," is in the highest measure emphatic. It is re- 
served for the weightiest matters and for commands 
of the utmost consequence, which were obeyed in the 
most punctual and scrupulous manner. There is but 
one example of it in the entire book of Genesis. It 
is in relation to the exactness with which Noah fol- 
lowed the divine directions in his preparations for 
the flood. " Thus did Noah ; according to all that 
God commanded him, so did he." It next occurs of 
Moses and Aaron, when they were charged to con- 
front Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of 
Egypt, Ex. 7:6. It is alleged, however, that the 
Jehovist speaks much more simply, and with less for- 
mality and emphasis, when he describes Noah's obe- 
dience to the divine injunctions. He merely says, 
7 : 5, "and Noah did according unto all that the LORD 
commanded him"; and if ver. 9 is really Jehovistic, 
for the critics are divided about it, he there expresses 
himself more briefly still, " as God had commanded 
Noah." The altered formula is no indication, how- 
ever, of a diversity of writers, but rather the reverse. 
The first time that Noah's compliance with the divine 
command is referred to, it is stated in the strongest 
terms. But a single employment of the lengthened 
phrase of special emphasis was sufficient in this con- 
nection. Other statements of the same kind, less 
elaborately made, could then follow in their appro- 
priate place. Thus the emphatic formula connected 
with the general statement in Ex. 39 : 32 is preceded, 
and that in Ex. 40 : 16, is followed by numerous partic- 
ular statements with the briefer formula, and no one 
suspects a difference of authorship on this account. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CIL 12, 13. 



139 



2. Mention has been made of two historical occa- 
sions of great moment, respecting which the length- 
ened formula is employed. With these exceptions it 
is found exclusively in legal contexts. It occurs twice 
in connection with the first observance of the Pass- 
over, Ex. 12 :28, 50; it is three times connected with 
the construction and setting up of the sacred taber- 
nacle, Ex. 39 : 42, 43, 40 : 16 ; three times with arrange- 
ments respecting the camp hallowed by God's pres- 
ence, Num. 1:54, 2 : 34, 5:4; once with the setting 
apart of the Levites, Num. 8 : 20 ; and once with the 
sanction divinely given to the Aaronic priesthood, 
Num. 17:11. In fact an overwhelming proportion 
of even the briefer formulae relate to obedience ren- 
dered to ritual enactments. It ceases to be surprising, 
therefore, that the longer and more emphatic formula 
is absent from the Jehovist sections, inasmuch as the 
ritual law is all assigned to the Elohist ; in fact it is 
but rarely that they have occasion to use any, even 
of the briefer formulae. 

3. The reason why the long and emphatic formula 
is never found in a Jehovist connection will become 
still more apparent when it is added that it is by rule 
referred to the Elohist simply on the ground of its 
occurrence, apart from any other reason, and even in 
the face of strong reasons to the contrary. A partic- 
ularly clear example of this is found in Ex. 12:28, 
which is preceded and followed by a Jehovist context, 
with the former of which it is intimately united, to 
which it evidently refers and from which all its mean- 
ing is derived. And yet it is torn from this connec- 
tion and linked with a distant Elohist paragraph solely 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 



and avowedly because it contains the formula in ques- 
tion. This is one of the gross improprieties, in which 
the critics are constantly indulging, as though clauses 
and sentences could be torn from their proper con- 
nection ad libitum and attached to any other that 
the critic may please, and the altered meaning be 
forced upon them, which may result from the dis- 
placement. Thus in this same chapter it is proposed 
to transfer vs. 14-20 from its proper place so as to 
precede the formula in ver. 50, and make this latter 
refer to it instead of to the paragraph which it act- 
ually follows. And in the same way Kayser and Dill- 
mann cut 9: 35 and 10: 20 away from the context in 
which they stand, and assign these verses thus iso- 
lated to another hypothetical writer with missing hy- 
pothetical contexts upon which they are assumed to 
have depended ; and this for no ground whatever but 
the exigencies of a hypothesis which demands it. The 
hypothesis must rule, whatever stands in the way. If 
the text can not be made to square with the critical 
assumptions, it is easy enough to create a text that 
will, by means of erasures, additions and dislocations. 

The whole procedure should be met by an indig- 
nant protest. If the Redactor was guilty of the un- 
meaning transpositions and eliminations which are 
attributed to him, removing sentences and clauses 
from their original place in the sources from which 
he drew, linking them with a different context so as 
to alter their meaning entirely, he was either a knave 
or a fool ; and it is hopeless to undertake to disen- 
tangle the medley he has made. The fact is that 
these imputations on the part of the critics are wholly 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 141 

gratuitous. The text, according to all fair laws of 
honest dealing, must be interpreted as it stands, at 
least until some better reason can be shown for re- 
modelling it than that an unproved critical hypothesis 
demands it. Otherwise all certainty of interpretation 
is destroyed, and the text and its meaning become 
the plaything of the critic's capricious fancy. A hy- 
pothesis which is obliged to resort to such violent 
and unauthorized measures writes its own condem- 
nation. If the truth of the divisive hypothesis were 
for the moment to be conceded, and we were to as- 
sume the existence of a Redactor to whom we owe 
the present form of the text, nevertheless it must be 
insisted upon that it yields the correct sense as it 
now stands, saving any errors that may have arisen 
in its transmission. Any partition which is destruc- 
tive of the plain sense of the work which he has left 
us, in whole or in part, is an unwarrantable impeach- 
ment of his integrity, and a substitution of the critic's 
own whimsical notions for the statements of that an- 
cient authority with which he is professedly dealing. 
Whether the divisive hypothesis be correct or not, 
the position can not be surrendered that the emphatic 
formula in 12:28 must have the reference, which it 
is evidently designed to have. It then of necessity 
becomes part of a Jehovist paragraph, and the for- 
mula in question ceases to be a criterion for distin- 
guishing the Elohist. 

The criteria of the Elohist thus far considered lie 
mostly outside of the plane of the Jehovist, who 
offers no equivalents or substitutes for them. All 
that is claimed is that they are found in one class of 



1 42 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



passages and not in the other. We have seen that 
their absence is readily explicable on other grounds 
than that of diversity of writers. It is alleged, how- 
ever, that there are things common to both which 
each invariably describes by a different term from the 
other. The most plausible instance of this is found 
in their respective mode of naming the months. As 
members of the religious society of the Friends are 
in the habit of numbering the months to which the 
rest of the community generally apply definite names, 
so it is said that among the Israelites the priestly 
usage was to number the months of the ecclesiastical 
year while definite names were applied to those of the 
civil year, which began at quite a different season. Of 
this it is said, there is evidence in the chapters before 
us. Chapter 12:2 intimates a change in the annual 
reckoning, that thenceforward a month was to stand 
at the beginning of the year, which had not done so 
previously. Now in accord with this the Elohist 
document or the Priest Code fixes the Passover in- 
variably in the first month ; the Jehovist as invariably 
in the month Abib. 

In regard to this, however, it should be observed, 
I, that there is no inconsistency in the same person 
employing both terms whether in the same or in dif- 
ferent connections, as was done, for example, by the 
author of the Books of Kings, who in his account of 
the building and dedication of Solomon's temple 
mentions, 1 Kin. 6:1, the month Zif, which is the 
second month, verse 38, the month Bui, which is the 
eighth month, and 8 : 2, the month Ethanim, which is 
the seventh month. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CIL 12, 13. 



2. Abib, as the name of a month, only occurs in 
connection with the Passover or feast of Unleavened 
Bread. It is so found three times in Exodus in pas- 
sages assigned to the Jehovist, and twice in a verse of 
Deuteronomy, 16: I, evidently based on the preced- 
ing. The Jehovist uses this name nowhere else, and 
no other month is referred to by name anywhere in 
the Pentateuch. Hitzig conjectured that Abib was 
the Hebrew form of Epiphi, the eleventh month of 
the Egyptian year, which, however, corresponded 
with our June or July rather than March or April. 1 
The name in Hebrew means " green ears," and was 
applied to the month because it fell in the season of 
ripening grain. At the feast of Unleavened Bread a 
formal offering was made of the earliest sheaf from 
the first-fruits of the harvest, an association which 
naturally led to the use of this name in that connec- 
tion. 

3. It is further observable that the month is never 
called Abib when the day of the month is mentioned. 
Dillmann accordingly conjectures that Abib, Zif, 
Ethanim and Bui were months of the solar year and 
were incommensurable with lunar months which were 
numbered. Others are of opinion that Abib 2 was the 
only month bearing a name in the Mosaic period, and 

1 As the Egyptian did not correspond precisely with the solar 
year and according to ancient testimony, the priests refused to rec- 
tify the calendar by intercalation, it was an annus vagus, whose 
months in a given period of time made a circuit of all the seasons. 
Hence Hitzig infers that at one time Epiphi and Abib exactly coin- 
cided. 

2 In the nomenclature of a later period this month was called 
Nisan. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



that this was not so much a proper name of the 
month, as indicative of the season of the year to which 
it belonged. Whatever be thought of these opinions, 
the fact remains that in every instance in which a 
specific date is given the month is numbered. Ac- 
cordingly in 12:18 the time for observing the feast 
of Unleavened Bread is stated to be in the first month 
from the fourteenth day of the month until the one- 
and-twentieth. So in Leviticus 23 and in Numbers 
28 and 29 where the several festivals of the year 
are recited in order and the exact time of each is given 
severally, the same nomenclature is maintained. But 
in Ex. 13:4 Moses said to the people on the day of 
the exodus, which, therefore, there was no occasion 
to specify further, " This day came ye out in the 
month Abib." So in Ex. 23:14, 34: 18, where the 
period of the feast is only spoken of generally as " the 
time appointed of the month Abib," it was natural to 
use the name suggestive of the season of ripening 
grain, especially as the other feasts are in the same 
connection associated not with definite dates, but with 
the harvesting of the crops and the ingathering of the 
fruits. The same reason holds also in the case of 
Deut. 16 : 1. 

It appears, therefore, that the alternation of names 
finds its explanation in the passages in which it oc- 
curs, and requires no assumption of the habit of dif- 
ferent writers to account for it. The allegation that 
the Elohist says " land of Egypt/' 12 : 1, etc., and the 
Jehovist "Egypt" simply, 12:27, etc., 13:3, etc., 
overlooks the Elohist passage, 12:40, and the Jeho- 
vist, 12:29, 13:15, where this is precisely reversed. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 



So, likewise, that f*pntD)2 * s used by the Elohist, 
12 : 13, in the abstract sense of " destruction " and by 
the Jehovist, ver. 23, in the concrete sense of u de- 
stroyer " is not perfectly certain, and it would be of 
no sort of consequence if it were. And while fn^y 
(service) is repeatedly used by the Elohist of the ritual 
in general, whereas the Jehovist here, 12 : 25, 26, 13:5, 
applies it to the individual rite of the Passover, it is 
to be borne in mind that this was all of the ritual that 
had up to that time been instituted. It is said to be 
peculiar to the Jehovist to call Egypt " the house of 
bondage " or " bondmen, " though this occurs in all 
but four times in passages assigned to him, viz., twice 
in the chapters before us, 13 : 3, 14, once in the pref- 
ace to the ten commandments, 20:2, and once in 
Joshua's farewell address, Josh. 24: 17 ; also to speak 
of Canaan as "a land flowing with milk and honey," 
Ex. 13:5, though Noldeke and Schrader refer one of 
the verses in which this phrase is found, Num. 14 : 8, 
to the Elohist, excepting only this one expression ; 
and "the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites and 
the Amorites and the Hivites and the Jebusites," 
13:5, though he may also say simply " the land of the 
Canaanites," ver. 11. It is said that it is the Jehovist 
alone who speaks of the LORD as swearing, 13:5, 
though an oath of the LORD is in Num. 14 : 28 recited 
by the Elohist. It is said that the preposition 
^1135^ (because of) is peculiar to the Jehovist, and it 
does not chance to occur in Elohist sections; so 
"infa * n the sense of " in time to come," Ex. 13 : 14, 
though it is so used by him in but one other passage 
in the Pentateuch, Gen. 30:33; and blS3 rendered 
10 



I 4 6 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



' quarters/ Ex. 13:7, elsewhere commonly - borders ■ 
or ' coasts,' notwithstanding the fact that it belongs 
to the Elohist, Gen. 23 : 17, Num. 33 144, and repeat- 
edly in the course of Num. 34 and 35 ; B*5pT (elders), 
12:21, though the Elohist has it, Lev. 4 : 1 5, 9 : 1 ; 
Tiff ft©* 1 ! "Hp* 1 ! (bowed the head and worshipped), 
12 : 27, though according to Noldeke and Wellhausen 
this does not here belong to the Jehovist, and accord- 
ing to Tuch and Stahelin the Elohist uses it in Gen. 
43 : 28. Knobel includes among Jehovistic expres- 
sions n^*| (footman), 12:37, and ^^5 (mixed multi- 
tude), ver. 38, though the former occurs but once be- 
sides in the Pentateuch, Num. 11 : 21, and the latter 
is nowhere else to be found in the Pentateuch in this 
sense ; and even here Noldeke attributes them to the 
Redactor, and Dillmann to the other Elohist. 

I believe that in this long and tedious review every- 
thing has been gathered up that the critics allege in 
respect to the diction of these chapters. And this is 
absolutely all the ground there is for parcelling them 
between these supposititious writers. Many of the 
words classed as characteristic of these writers re- 
spectively are of so rare occurrence that the statement 
is unmeaning. In almost every instance what is de- 
clared to be peculiar to one writer is nevertheless 
found in passages attributed to the other. The 
presence or absence of words is noted in a purely me- 
chanical way, irrespective of the question whether 
there was any occasion for their employment. And 
where different terms are employed for the same 
thing the reason is sought in unmeaning differences 
of style, when they are discriminatingly used accord- 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 147 



ing to the requirements of the case or the shade of 
thought to be expressed. There is no evidence what- 
ever of divergent styles or the various diction of dis- 
tinct writers. Differences occur in the paragraphs 
assigned by the critics to the same writer, which 
would otherwise have been deemed significant, as 
when the Jehovist says "31 DTHi> x 3 : 3> H> J 6 (by 
^strength of hand), whereas his customary phrase is 
fiptn TO (by a strong hand), 6:1, 13:9. Or when 
he describes the limits of the last plague, 1 1 : 5, " from 
the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne 
unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind 
the mill," — but in 12:29, " f rom the first-born of 
Pharaoh that sat on his throne to the first-born of the 
captive that was in the dungeon." Again, certain 
passages speak of the Lord as smiting the first- 
born, while others describe him in more general terms 
as smiting the land of Egypt or the Egyptians. The 
attempt has here, in fact, been made to show that 
there were two distinct traditions, according to one 
of which the plague was due to natural causes, and 
according to the other it was miraculously limited to 
the first-born. But the way is blocked by the fact 
that both forms of statement occur alike in the 
Elohist (12:12, 13), and the Jehovist (11 : 5, 12:23, 
27, 29). 

Inasmuch as the critics arrange the paragraphs to 
suit themselves and use the utmost license in so doing, 
the marvel is that they are only able after all to make 
out so poor a case. 

Our examination has been limited to the diction of 
the chapters specially before us, and I think it may 



I 4 S THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 



be fairly said that nothing has been adduced of any 
cogency to break the conclusion previously reached 
from the consideration of their contents, that they 
form one indivisible narrative. These chapters cer- 
tainly yield no support to the divisive hypothesis. 
Whether it is applicable to other portions of the Pen- 
tateuch is not the question now before us ; but cer- 
tainly so far as we have yet been able to see, it has« 
no application here. 

It may not be out of place to adduce the verdict 
which Graf/ the founder of the most recent critical 
school, passes upon the prevalent mode of dissection 
by means of diction and style. " To base a determin- 
ation of age/' he says, u on bare peculiarities of lan- 
guage, especially in things that concern legal relations, 
in which the form of expression is not arbitrarily em- 
ployed by the writer, is precarious. When the rela- 
tionship of certain sections is assumed on perhaps in- 
sufficient criteria, and then other sections are added 
to them because of some similar linguistic phenomena, 
and from these again further and further conclusions 
are drawn, one easily runs the risk of moving in a 
vicious circle/' " The reference of every section and 
every individual verse to its origin, which Ewald and 
Knobel have attempted, will certainly never be ac- 
complished in a perfectly satisfactory and convincing 
way, and is often dependent on subjective opinion." 

I know of but one other argument which has been 
urged in favor of accepting the results of the divisive 
criticism ; and that is drawn from the agreement of 
the critics among themselves, not indeed as to all 

1 ""Die Geschichtlichen B&cher," pp. 2, 3. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 149 



minute details, but as to their general conclusions. 
The early efforts of the critics, it is said, were tenta- 
tive, and mistakes were made from which their suc- 
cessors have receded. But advances have been steadily 
made until the hypothesis now rests on a solid basis 
and is clearly defined in all main and essential points. 

It is frankly confessed that the most eminent and 
in fact nearly all the critics of Germany who easily 
lead the van in this branch of Biblical scholarship, have 
declared with remarkable unanimity in favor of what 
has been called the analysis of the Pentateuch. And 
it is further confessed that there is a general agree- 
ment among them in certain leading points. But we 
must for the present at least decline to accept a vote 
of the majority as an infallible test of truth, for the 
following reasons : 

1. That measure of agreement which exists among 
the divisive critics is readily accounted for without 
conceding the truth of the hypothesis. It is con- 
ditioned by the nature of the case and follows from 
the primary assumption which they hold in common. 
If an expedition to the North Pole is sent out by the 
Baffin's Bay route, it must follow a given track de- 
termined by the experience of preceding navigators. 
If practicable at all, it is only upon that line. But 
whether the expedition will after all succeed in reach- 
ing its objective point, is another matter. Any at- 
tempt to explain the movements of the planetary sys- 
tem by the Cartesian hypothesis of vortices would 
involve the necessity of accepting this hypothesis in 
all its details. An ingenious chess-player has solved 
the complicated problem of the knight and has shown 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



how that erratic piece can be made to touch succes- 
sively every square of the board ; other solutions may 
be feasible, but they have never yet been devised. If 
a military road is to be constructed across the Alps 
at a given point, the topography must first be ascer- 
tained and then engineering science will determine 
which must necessarily be the most practicable route. 

The partition of the Pentateuch upon the principles 
of the divisive hypothesis is a definite problem, upon 
which the highest order of intellect, learning and in- 
genuity has been long and persistently employed. 
The labor and patient thought expended upon it have 
been prodigious. Every word and sentence of the 
Pentateuch has been studied with microscopic minute- 
ness, the best possible groupings have been sought 
within the limits imposed by the hypothesis, the in- 
tricacies of the case have been threaded with the ut- 
most care, weak points have been guarded, assailable 
positions as far as practicable avoided, and everything 
seized upon that can add to the apparent strength or 
plausibility of the scheme. The result is a marvellous 
specimen of artistic contrivance. Of course it has all 
the while been becoming more perfect as a hypothesis. 
The critics have been quick to learn by the blunders 
of their predecessors. No one, it may be presumed, 
will ever renew Vater's fragmentary hypothesis, once 
so fashionable. A general might as well undertake 
to storm a fort by marching his unsheltered army 
where they will be exposed to the fire of the garrison 
at every point and mowed down as rapidly as they 
can advance. As the halting-places of the document- 
ary hypothesis revealed themselves, the attempt was 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH, 12, 13. 151 



made by Tuch and others to cover them by the sup- 
plementary hypothesis. But as on the scheme of Graf 
and Wellhausen, which has sprung into sudden popu- 
larity, the foundation has been converted into the 
summit of the edifice, that form of the hypothesis 
was summarily cast aside, and the critics have fallen 
back under cover of Hupfeld's discovery of the sec- 
ond Elohist. The hypothesis, as it now stands, with 
three, or if the Deuteronomist be included, four dis- 
tinct writers, and a final Redactor to add, retrench, 
retouch and combine at pleasure, is flexible enough, 
one would think, to deal with anything however in- 
tractable. He who accepts the divisive hypothesis 
at all must follow very much in the line of those who 
have gone before him. He would be a bold adventurer 
indeed who would attempt an independent route, 
abandoning all the defences which have been so skil- 
fully planned, and the combinations which have been 
so ingeniously arranged. The agreement of critics is 
simply a confession that the hypothesis can no longer 
be materially improved. It does not cease on that 
account, however, to be still purely a hypothesis. 

2. The agreement of the critics is, however, far 
from perfect. The first five chapters of Genesis can 
only be divided in one way, if the change of divine 
names is made the basis; consequently there has 
been no variance there of any account except as to 
the limiting verse between the first and second sec- 
tions, 2:4; and that constitutes an obstacle which 
has never been successfully removed. And so it is 
elsewhere. It is the still remaining differences which 
form the significant feature of the case. In very 



152 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 

many portions there is plain sailing. If the hypothe- 
sis is accepted and its principles and methods adopted, 
there is but one line of separation that is practicable. 
Over these easy places the critics march in unbroken 
column. But there is besides not a little rough and 
uneven ground, where they break their ranks and 
there are many stragglers. These after all supply 
the crucial tests. The hypothesis in many instances 
can not be made to fit, and each seeks his own 
method of bridging the chasm, or parrying the fatal 
thrust, or stretching the covering which in spite of 
every effort proves too narrow for him to wrap him- 
self in. Wellhausen relieves himself by the expe- 
dient of successive revisions of each constituent 
document, in which Dillmann 1 sees nothing but evi- 
dence of his embarrassment in his being obliged to 
resort to it. Meanwhile Dillmann himself assumes 
such a subtle weaving together of documents by the 
Redactor as makes the entanglement hopeless. The 
critic who undertakes to deal with all the intricacies 
imposed upon him by the hypothesis consistently 
carried through, has to multiply his machinery to 
such an extent, before it will work smoothly, that it 
is in danger of breaking down by its own weight. 
The diversities still remaining among the critics suffi- 
ciently show that no one has yet succeeded in ad- 
justing the hypothesis to the entire satisfaction even 
of his own associates. 

3. To disinterested observers the style of argu- 
ment, by which the hypothesis is defended, seems in 
large part inconclusive and vain. This has been 

1 M Die Bucher Exodus und Leviticus," Preface, p. vii. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 153 



sufficiently illustrated in discussing the reasons ad- 
duced to establish diversity of authorship in the chap- 
ters before us. It is not necessary to demolish the 
walls of a fortress throughout their whole extent in 
order to effect an entrance. If the hypothesis can 
be broken through at important salient points, this 
does not, to say the least, increase our confidence in 
its strength. 

4. Nevertheless, the hypothesis has attractions to 
account for its present popularity. These are of 
different sorts, and address themselves to different 
classes of persons. First, they who discredit the 
supernatural have of course a strong bias in favor of 
this hypothesis. It has from the first been developed 
in the interest of unbelief, and it affords the readiest 
mode of setting aside the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the Pentateuch. But it is also captivating 
to others by its bold dexterity, its plausible explana- 
tion of certain curious phenomena, its romantic 
bringing to light of long existing but previously un- 
suspected documents, whose mutual relations and 
tendencies and the circumstances of their origin 
allow free scope to the imagination ; it opens new 
realms for investigation and offers chances for im- 
portant and startling discoveries. It thus appeals 
strongly to those of an original and speculative 
turn of mind. It naturally kindles a like fervor of 
enthusiasm to that which was awakened by the search 
for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, the 
northwest passage, the missing link between brute 
animals and man, bridging the chasm from the in- 
organic to the organic, squaring the circle, inventing 



154 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



a perpetual motion and other chimerical objects. It 
is a superb monument of the learning and ingenuity 
of those who devised it and have wrought upon it thus 
far. But we must be permitted to doubt its having 
solved the problem of the origin of the Pentateuch, 
though it has unquestionably been attended with im- 
mense incidental advantages in the thorough investi- 
gation of the Pentateuch to which it has led, and the 
light thrown upon its interpretation, its structure and 
the relations of its several parts. But it would be 
no strange thing if it should yet be sometime desert- 
ed by German love of novelty. And among the odd 
possibilities of the future, who knows but old beliefs 
may have a resurrection even there, and tenets long 
forgotten and out of mind may, when revived, have 
all the charm of a new and potent attraction? 

The critical objections to the unity of these chap- 
ters have now all been examined and found, I think 
I may say, to be destitute of force. We are entitled, 
therefore, to regard them as being what on their face 
they appear to be, what they have always been be- 
lieved to be, and what the intimate and harmonious 
relation of all their parts declares them to be, one 
continuous and connected narrative. There is no 
ground whatever for the assertion of the critics, that 
they are made up of two or three distinct and sepa- 
rable accounts from writers whose date is variously 
estimated as referable to any time from the age of 
Joshua to that of Ezra, and which were combined 
into their present form by a Redactor later still. The 
stand-point of the critics places the interpreter under 
the inevitable temptation to exaggerate every slight 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12. 13. 155 



variation in the terms employed into a real variance, 
thus producing discrepancies of statement and differ- 
ences of conception where none whatever exist. 
The critical division of these chapters, accordingly, 
is invariably associated with the idea that each 
writer represents a distinct tradition of the origin 
of the Passover, differing more or less from the 
other, so that no one is absolutely reliable, and the 
truth is to be eliminated by comparison and by 
weighing one against another. And by not a few the 
conclusion is drawn that no confidence can be reposed 
in either of the accounts, and the critic feels at liberty 
to develop his own views of the origin of the festi- 
val irrespective of any of the conflicting statements 
here made. But in fact this pretext for discrediting 
the narrative in whole or in part does not exist. In- 
stead of conflicting accounts from distinct writers 
which are incapable of being harmonized, and must 
therefore be carefully sifted or given up entirely, we 
have one self-consistent record. 

It only remains to be added further that this is a 
credible and true history and not, as many of the 
critics affirm, law under the guise of history. These 
chapters contain a record of what was really trans- 
acted at the exodus, of the circumstances under which 
the Passover was in fact instituted, and of the events 
which were afterward commemorated in its subse- 
quent annual celebration — not mere deductions from 
the rite itself as it was observed in later times, whether 
these are conceived as inferences of the writer himself 
or as embodied in popular tales which had grown up 
in connection with this observance. 



156 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH 12, 13. 



In evidence that this is the record of actual his- 
torical occurrences, appeal may be made, 1st, To the 
opening statement, 12 : 1, that this law was given to 
Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt. Hupfeld 
objects to this as suspicious from its vague generality 
and because it is superfluous in the connection. But 
it is precisely in accordance with the usage of the Pen- 
tateuch to indicate the place in which its laws were 
given, e.g., Lev. 7 : 38, 25 : 1, 26 : 46, 27 : 34, Mount 
Sinai ; Num. 35 : 1, 36 : 13, the plains of Moab. And 
it was the more important that this should be noted 
here, because it was an exceptional case, all the rest 
of the ritual laws having been enacted in the wilder- 
ness, and because the significance of the ordinance 
rested largely on the time, place and circumstances 
of its original celebration. And that it must really 
have been instituted in Egypt, as is here stated, ap- 
pears from the fact that it was observed in the first 
instance as a preservative against the plague of the 
first-born, as well as from the peculiar mode of its 
observance on that occasion. The whole ceremonial 
savors of a time when there was as yet no public 
sanctuary, no priesthood, no common altar. The 
animal was slain at home by the head of each family, 
and its blood sprinkled on the door-posts of the 
house. 1 These particulars reappear nowhere else in 
law or usage ; and the last mentioned was performed 

1 Graf (" Geschichtliche Bucher," pp. 34, 35) absurdly enough seeks 
to explain this as a usage which grew up in the Babylonish exile, 
when the people were sundered from the place of the sanctuary. 
But it would be a gross violation of the fundamental principle of 
the Priest Code, of which the exile is made the birth-place. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 157 



explicitly for the purpose of protecting the household 
by the expiatory virtue of the slain lamb from the 
apprehended visit of the angel of death. The as- 
sumption that this describes the usage of a later 
time and transfers it back to the age of Moses and 
the scene of the exodus is altogether gratuitous, hav- 
ing no basis in any known fact. It is at variance 
not only with the traditional belief and practice of 
the Jews, but with all the later legislation on the 
subject, and it finds no support whatever in the regu- 
lations here given which direct the perpetuation of 
the ordinance, but not necessarily those particulars 
which for special reasons belonged only to its first 
observance. 

2. No good reason can be given why the Passover 
alone of the three annual feasts should have been 
thus singled out and represented to have been the 
only one instituted in Egypt, unless this was really 
the case. In all subsequent laws the three feasts are 
mentioned together as of common obligation. In 
the later history the feast of Tabernacles as a feast of 
special gladness and of universal interest assumed 
superior prominence, and is more frequently spoken 
of. This distinction accorded to the Passover can 
only be due to the historical reason here assigned. 

3. All the subsequent laws relating to the feasts 
directly connect the Passover and the feast of Un- 
leavened Bread with the exodus. Thus, Ex. 23 : 15, 
" Thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded 
thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib ; for 
in it thou earnest out from Egypt. " So in almost 
IdenticaF words Ex. 34 : 18. Both these passages are 



158 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



expressly said to have been written by Moses, 24 : 4, 
34 : 27 ; and the reason which they give for observing 
the feast of Unleavened Bread at the time appointed 
is that in it they came out of Egypt ; and further, 
they explicitly refer to the command given for its 
observance in Ex., ch. 12, 13. George claims that the 
reference is to Deuteronomy ; others to some law 
now unknown, or that the words " as I commanded 
thee " are an interpolation. But the only reason for 
suspecting an interpolation is that the critic wishes 
to get rid in this summary manner of an unwelcome 
part of the text. As the book of Exodus now stands, 
the reference to ch. 12, 13 is obvious. The Redactor, 
if there was one, certainly intended it to be so under- 
stood ; the verbal allusion also is plain. This refer- 
ence consequently must be admitted, unless some 
good reason can be given to the contrary and for sus- 
pecting either the honesty or the competency of the 
Redactor or both. Lev. 23 though it makes no 
direct allusion to this law, plainly presupposes it. 
A full account is here given of the ceremonies to be 
observed at the feasts which had not been previously 
described. But no description is given of the mode 
of observing the Passover nor of the peculiar services 
of the day of Atonement. The latter are omitted, 
because they had been fully set forth in Lev. 16 ; the 
ritual of the former is nowhere given except in Ex. 
12, 13. Upon the first anniversary of their leaving 
Egypt the people were directed, Num. 9 : 1 ff., to 
keep the Passover in its appointed season " according 
to all the rites of it and according to all the cere- 
monies of it*'; which implies that these fites had 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 159 



been before ordained. But there is no record of the 
fact except in these chapters, to which there are be- 
sides clear verbal references, vs. II, 12, 14. Deut. 
16: 1-8 also connects the Passover with the exodus, 
and contains numerous verbal allusions to Ex. 12, 13 ; 
and the Deuteronomic law is expressly said to have 
been written by Moses, Deut. 31:9, 24. All the 
later laws are thus built upon the law in Ex. T2, 13^ 
and presuppose it ; the connection of the Passover 
with the exodus is explicitly declared, and that in laws 
which are distinctly said to have been written by 
Moses himself. Even on the principles of the divisive 
critics themselves this unanimous concurrence of all 
the sources of tradition and all the hypothetical 
writers and the Redactor as well in one explicit tes- 
timony must be accepted as evidence of truth, if any- 
thing whatever from the Mosaic age can be relied 
upon. 

To this may be added the fact already shown in a 
former lecture that the great majority of the most 
eminent critics, however they differed in other re- 
spects, have seen no difficulty in maintaining the 
Mosaic or even pre-Mosaic origin of the feasts upon 
grounds altogether independent of the truth of the 
historical records. 

It is objected, 1, that the formal declaration, 12:2, 
that the month of the exodus was to be reckoned 
the first month of the year, is evidently post-exilic, as 
it is based upon the change of the calendar then 
made. This has been maintained on directly opposite 
grounds. George 1 affirms that the Jewish year orig- 
1 " Die alteren Judischen Feste," p. 91. 



l6o THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



inally began in the spring ; but when the double mode 
of reckoning was introduced after the exile and the 
civil year began in the autumn, this verse was inserted 
to indicate that the ecclesiastical year differed from 
that in common use in holding fast to the ancient 
order. Wellhausen on the contrary asserts that prior 
to the exile the Jewish year began in the autumn, 
but that subsequently the spring era represented in 
this passage was adopted from the Babylonians. In 
fact neither is correct ; both modes of reckoning 
were in use long prior to the exile, as is evinced by 
numerous passages. 1 

2. It is also objected that the feast of Unleavened 
Bread was not to be observed until they reached Ca- 
naan, 13:5, and that the terms of the law imply 
residence there, 12:19, 2 S 4-8,49- But the very 
purpose for which they were leaving Egypt, was to 
take possession of Canaan, which had been promised 
them as their inheritance, and where they expected 
to be settled without delay. The laws are, therefore, 
framed with reference to this anticipated condition. 

3. A further objection is drawn from the occur- 
rence of words which are alleged to indicate a later 
a S e > d^tiSU) (judgments), Ex. 12 : 12, and in the 
sense of " self-same,'' 12:17, 41, 51, which reappear 
in Ezekiel, and -pi^n* use d *3 : I2 > °* setting apart 
the first-born to Jehovah, but which is the technical 

1 The year beginning in the spring, when nature buds out anew 
and new enterprises can be undertaken, 2 Sam. 11: 1; 1 Kin. 
20 : 22, 26 ; Jer. 36 : 22. The year beginning in the fall, when the 
fruits of the previous year have been gathered in, and it is time to 
plough and sow for a new harvest, Ex. 23 : 16, 34 : 22 ; Lev. 25 : 9, 
10, 22 ; 2 Kin. 22 : 3, comp. 23 : 23 , Isa. 37 : 30. 



THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 161 



term in common use in the period of the later kings 
for " passing through" the fire to Moloch, 2 Kin, 
16: 3, etc. But the first two words though found in 
Ezekiel are evidently adopted by him not from the 
current usage of his time, of which there is no evi- 
dence, but from the familiar language of the ancient 
law ; and the third word is not borrowed from the 
Moloch abomination, but from the dialect of com- 
mon life, as when an inheritance is " made to pass/' 
Num. 27:7, 8, to him who receives it, or the king- 
dom was translated or " made to pass " from the 
house of Saul to that of David, 2 Sam. 3 : 10. So 
the first-born were " made to pass " into the exclu- 
sive ownership of Jehovah. 

4. Wellhausen 1 likewise objects to " the preaching 
tone of 13 : 3-16, which is quite foreign to the older " 
writers, and to " the stage of religiosity, which comes 
out particularly in vs. 9, 10, upon which authors who 
tell of the patriarchs erecting stones and altars, plant- 
ing sacred trees and digging wells, do not stand." 
But now, precisely, when this ordinance was appoint- 
ed to perpetuate the remembrance of God's most 
signal benefits, was the time to insist upon their keep- 
ing in ever-present memory themselves, and inculcat- 
ing upon their children the lessons of the hour, comp. 
also Gen. 18: 19; Ex. 10: 2. The pharisaic literalism 
foisted upon 13 : 9 is as foreign from its genuine sense 
as the fetichism which by an utter perversion he 
would impute to the Patriarchs. 

5. But the final and most serious objection is, this 
can not be true history, for it is too closely entwined 

1 " Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie," XXI., p. 544. 
II 



1 62 THE UNITY OF EXODUS, CH. 12, 13. 



with the miraculous to be separated. This after all 
is the secret of the settled determination of the critics 
to rid themselves of these chapters. A pestilence 
sweeping off vast numbers of the Egyptians might 
be admitted : and Israel might have escaped its rav- 
ages, for they dwelt in a district by themselves. But 
to those whose prime maxim is that the supernatural 
must necessarily be a myth, a pestilence which singled 
out the first-born in every house, is utterly inadmissi- 
ble, though both the Passover and the hallowing of 
the first-born, 13:15, Num. 3 : 13, 8 : 17, combine to 
declare it true. To those who do not share these 
principles the institution of the Passover at the exo- 
dus is no more mythical than the American Revolu- 
tion and Declaration of Independence are to be ac- 
counted myths based on the annual observance of the 
fourth of July. 



V. 



THE FEAST LAWS AND THE 
PASSOVER. 



V. 



THE FEAST LAWS AND THE PASSOVER. 



HE unity and historical character of Ex. 12, 13 



having been established, we have gained a van- 
tage ground for the study of the other laws relating 
to the Passover. The various laws upon this subject, 
we are told, represent different periods ; and by their 
aid it is easy to trace the history and development of 
this festival, from its simplest beginnings, through 
the various stages of its progress to its final form. 

It is generally agreed among the critics that there 
are three principal strata in the legislation, which are 
referred respectively to the Jehovist, Elohist and 
Deuteronomist. To the Jehovist are assigned the 
laws in Ex. 23 and 34 which are supposed to be 
older codes embodied by him in his work, the former 
being a part of the Book of the Covenant, Ex. 21-23, 
and the latter being called, for a reason which we shall 
learn hereafter, the law of the two tables. Commonly 
also, as we have seen already, certain legal sections 
of ch. 12, 13 are ascribed to the Jehovist, but Weli- 
hausen insists that these do not properly belong to his 
work, but are later additions to it. To the Elohist are 
attributed the rest of Ex. 12, 13, and the laws in Lev. 
23, Num. 9: 1-14, Num. 28, 29. George claims for 




(165) 



1 66 THE FEAST LA WS 

Deuteronomy priority to all the other laws. Dillmann 
places it last of all. Wellhausen assigns it a central 
position, between the Jehovist legislation and that of 
the Elohist. In his view the Jehovist belongs to the 
period preceding the overthrow of the kingdom of 
the ten tribes ; Deuteronomy to the reign of Josiah ; 
the Elohist after the Babylonish exile. Critics are 
now, however, generally united in the opinion that 
Ex. 23 and 34 contain the oldest form of the feast 
laws and of the cultus generally. Wellhausen 1 says: 
" In the old days the public worship of the nation 
consisted essentially in the celebration of the yearly 
feasts, .... and accordingly the laws of worship are 
confined to this one point in the Jehovist and even 
in Deuteronomy." 

The language of the two laws above referred to is 
nearly identical, with some remarkable variations, and 
the critics have been greatly puzzled to make out the 
relation in which they stand to each other and why 
both forms have been preserved. George 2 thinks that 
ch. 34 was framed upon the basis of ch. 23, the author 
only explaining or completing what was difficult or 
obscure. Kuenen 3 says very much to the same effect : 
"The author of Exodus 34 borrows from the Book 
of the Covenant and from a few other laws the rules 
which seem to him to be the most important, and 
makes of them a whole after his own fashion." Graf, 
on the other hand, thinks that ch. 23 was abbreviated 
from ch. 34, which previously existed in a separate 

1 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," Vol. XVIII., Art. Pentateuch, p. 511. 

2 " Die alteren Judischen Feste," p. no. 

3 "The Religion of Israel," Vol. II., p. 8. 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



167 



state. Reuss 3 remarks on this subject: "It is very 
difficult to say in what relation the so-called second 
decalogue (Ex. 34: 11 ff.) stands to the Book of the 
Covenant. It is not an integral part of it. One could 
not understand why it was sundered from the rest 
and contained repetitions. But the latter particularly 
seem to bring them near together in point of time. ,, 
He accordingly cuts the knot by assuming that the 
feast laws were originally no part of the Book of the 
Covenant ; this contained almost nothing relating to 
worship, and the gap was filled in a supplementary 
manner by an insertion from ch. 34. Wellhausen 2 
again maintains that the feast laws in ch. 23 were 
neither borrowed from ch. 34, nor those in ch. 34 
from ch. 23, but that they were originally quite inde- 
pendent of each other, only they have been mutually 
interpolated, 34:18 having been taken from 23:15, 
and 23 : 17-19 transferred from ch. 34. Hitzig, 3 
whom Delitzsch 4 somewhat sharply describes as "hav- 
ing passed from Romish superstition to Protestant 
unbelief,'* made the astounding discovery, following 
out a suggestion of Goethe's, that this was another 
version of the ten commandments. Wellhausen 5 of 
course indorses this discovery ; only in his free appli- 
cation of the critical knife, which never fails him in 
an emergency, it is surprising that he did not avail 
himself of his opportunity and strike out from this 

1 "Geschichte d. heiligen Schriften alten Bundes," I., p. 232. 

2 "Geschichte," I , p, 89. 

3 11 Ostern und PSngsten," 1838, p. 42. 
4 Guericke , s " Zeitschrift," for 1840, No. 2, p. 116. 

6 (i Jahrbiicher fiir Deutsche Theologie," XXL, p. 554. 



THE FEAST LA WS 



new-fangled decalogue the unwelcome words, " Thou 
shalt make thee no molten gods," which have no 
counterpart in ch. 23, but which, corroborated by the 
second commandment in Ex. 20 and Deut. 5, even 
apart from the story of the golden calf, confront the 
critics with multiplied evidence that Moses really did 
forbid image-worship. And then the frequent lapses 
of Israel into idolatry and the worship established by 
Jeroboam in the ten tribes afford glaring proofs of 
the falsity of the critical dictum that the open and 
continued disregard of a statute warrants the infer- 
ence of its non-existence. 

According to YVellhausen there are three quite in- 
dependent and mutually contradictor}' traditions of 
the transactions at Sinai. One of these knows noth- 
ing of any ten commandments or tables of stone, but 
only of a series of laws or judgments, ch. 21-23, which 
Moses is directed to write. According to the second, 
Jehovah uttered ten commandments, ch. 20, in awful 
majesty in the audience of the whole people, and gave 
to Moses after he had been forty days in the mount two 
tables of stone upon which they had been written by 
God's own finger, but which Moses broke in descend- 
ing the mountain. According to the third, Jehovah 
uttered the ten commandments in ch. 34, 1 which are, 

3 Wellhausen accordingly (" Geschichte Israels," p. S5 : Prolego- 
mena (Eng. Trans.), p. S3, and passim) calls Ex. 34 : 14-26 "das 
Zweitafelgesetz," the law of the two tables, claiming that this is one 
version of the law written on tables of stone. Dr. Delitzsch calls 
it by a slight modification "das Zweittafelgesetz,'"' the law of the 
second tables, meaning the compendious law issued in connection 
with the second giving of the decalogue to Moses as an abridgment 
of the Book of the Covenant, ch. 21-23, which was issued in connec- 
tion with the first proclamation of the ten commandments. 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



169 



however, entirely different from those of ch. 20, and 
were spoken not to the people, but to Moses, who 
himself wrote them upon two tables of stone which 
he had prepared and taken with him for the purpose, 
and which there is no record of his having broken. 
All this is made out in the usual way in which the 
critics accomplish their marvellous feats, viz., by split- 
ting up the narrative and ejecting as an interpolation 
whatever can not be made to bend to their purpose. 

Under such guidance we may well despair of know- 
ing anything of the Mosaic period or indeed of any 
other. If anything can be established by historical 
and monumental evidence, the law surely can be 
which was graven on stones that were still extant in 
the time of Solomon, and are even referred to by 
Jeremiah, though destined shortly to be superseded. 
The allegation that the laws of ch. 34 are the ten 
commandments, and that they w r ere written by Moses 
on tables of stone, confounds what Moses is directed 
to write, ver. 27, with what was written on the tables, 
ver. 28, not by Moses, but by the LORD, as is plain 
from the explicit statement of ver. 1. In the clause, 
" he did neither eat bread nor drink water/' the sub- 
ject is plainly Moses. But in the following clause, 
" and he wrote upon the tables the words of the cov- 
enant, the ten commandments/' the subject is as 
plainly the LORD, who had promised, " I will write 
upon the tables the words that were in the first tables 
which thou brakest." The change of subject in suc- 
cessive clauses, where the meaning is sufficiently 
obvious, is too familiar to create the slightest trouble. 
As Ranke shows, the denial of it leads to the most 



170 



THE FEAST LA WS 



glaring incongruities, as that Melchizedek paid tithes 
to Abraham, Gen. 14: 19, 20, that Abraham's servant 
hospitably entertained Laban, 24:32, and that Moses 
claims the prerogatives of the Almighty God, Ex. 
34:9, 10. 

The relation between ch. 23 and 34, in which 
the critics find so much mystery and perplexity, is as 
plain as a simple, straightforward narrative can make 
it. The former is a part of the Book of the Cove- 
nant, to which the people formally pledged obedience 
in that solemn transaction by which they became the 
Lord's people and he became their God. This cov- 
enant was ruptured by the sin of the golden calf, and 
the tables of the law were broken. And when upon 
Moses' fervent intercession it was again renewed, the 
ten commandments were once more written by the 
Lord upon tables of stone, and that portion of the 
Book of the Covenant which concerned the people's 
duties toward God, was rewritten by Moses. 

From the brevity of the feast laws in these chap- 
ters, and the general terms in which they are couched, 
it is claimed that they must be the original regula- 
tions on the subject ; and that other laws, which con- 
tain more minute and extended regulations, must be- 
long to a later period when these institutions had 
been developed beyond the primitive simplicity in 
which we here find them. But that this can not be 
the case is apparent upon a simple inspection. For, 
1. They explicitly refer to an antecedent law, Thou 
shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded 
thee. 2. This reference to a prior law is made in con- 
nection with one feast only, that of Unleavened Bread, 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



I/I 



which seems to intimate that while directions had 
been given in respect to it, none had yet been given 
respecting the two remaining feasts. 3. What is said 
of the other two feasts is so meagre that no one could 
gather from it anything as to their nature or how 
they were to be observed. There is also some varia- 
tion in the terms applied to them ; and the expres- 
sions, " feast of harvest," " feast of ingathering," seem 
to be descriptive epithets derived from the occasion 
of their observance rather than proper names of the 
feasts themselves. This is just such a general indefinite 
sort of reference as might be expected in the funda- 
mental law of the covenant, leaving all further details 
to be supplied by subsequent legislation. George 
maintains that the previous law referred to is that in 
Deuteronomy; but Wellhausen confesses that it is 
plainly Ex. 13, though he seeks to escape the conse- 
quence of his admission by the groundless assertion 
that the words " as I commanded thee " are an interpo- 
lation. 

The next law in order is Lev. 23. This, we are 
told, must belong to a much later period than the 
preceding; for instead of only three feasts there are 
now five, the feast of Trumpets and the day of Atone- 
ment having meanwhile been added ; and further, 
there are ceremonies connected with each, of which no 
mention was made before. But there are no more 
feasts, properly speaking, in this chapter than the 
three previously spoken of. The only appearance of 
an increase in the number in the ordinary English 
version arises from the confusion of two quite dis- 
tinct words, which are indiscriminately rendered 



172 



THE FEAST LA WS 



feasts. The first of these is the same that is correctly 
translated " seasons/' Gen. I : 14; it properly denotes 
fixed or stated periods. The chapter which we are 
now considering professes to enumerate not "the 
feasts " simply, but all the stated periods in the year 
with which holy convocations were connected. It 
accordingly begins with the weekly Sabbath, and then 
proceeds with the annually recurring stated times at 
which holy convocations were prescribed, whether 
pilgrimages were to be made, as at the three great 
festivals, or not. Upon these several occasions men- 
tion is made of the fact that an offering made by fire 
unto the LORD was required ; but no specifications 
are given as to the number or character of these offer- 
ings. In Num. 28 this lack is supplied, and a detailed 
account given of the sacrifices to be offered every day, 
every Sabbath, and upon every occasion of special 
solemnity throughout the year. Here the critics 
themselves confess that these chapters are mutually 
supplementary ; that they do not represent different 
stages in the development of the feasts, but the very 
same; and that the details respecting the sacrifices 
were purposely omitted in the one chapter with the 
view of bringing them together as we find them in 
the other. This is an admission that different de- 
grees of fulness in the contents of the feast laws may 
be due to other causes than the lapse of time and the 
development of these ordinances in the interval. It 
may result from the purpose of the writer, the or- 
dinance remaining unchanged. This is yielding the 
entire principle, which satisfactorily accounts for all 
the differences in the Pentateuchal laws on this sub- 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



173 



ject without the need of assuming any protracted 
periods of growth between them. 

The fact is that the feast laws, instead of being 
scattered through the Pentateuch at random, as a 
superficial observer might imagine, or being isolated 
fragments of codes distinct in authorship and widely 
separated in point of time, are not only harmonious, 
but are integral parts of a well-contrived scheme : 
they have all been prepared with evident reference 
to one another and each is adjusted to its proper 
place in this comprehensive body of legislation ; so 
that they stand in most intimate mutual relation, and 
at the same time in close and obvious relation to the 
context in which they are found, and to that part of 
the system of legislation which they respectively oc- 
cupy. In the Book of the Covenant, drawn up as the 
preliminary basis of the union to be cemented be- 
tween Jehovah and Israel, it would have been clearly 
out of place to introduce in detail the whole cere- 
monial of worship, which was subsequently estab- 
lished as the outgrowth and proper expression of 
this union. Accordingly it comprises first and mainly 
regulations regarding the relation of man to man, 
conceived in the spirit of the religion of Jehovah, 
and then in the briefest possible compass directions 
respecting firstlings and first-fruits, the Sabbath and 
the annual feasts, that is to say, oblations and sacred 
times, as the culminations of that outward and formal 
service in which the people's homage toward God was 
to manifest itself. Any fuller or more elaborate de- 
scription even of these particulars would not have 
been appropriate or suitable here, where only an out- 
line programme, so to speak, was called for. 



174 



THE FEAST LA WS 



From the Book of the Covenant everything leads 
by regular and easy steps to the next feast law in 
Lev. 23. 1 The ratification of the covenant brought 
with it as its immediate consequence that Jehovah 
condescended to dwell in the midst of his people. 
All the rest of Exodus is occupied with divine direc- 
tions for the preparation of the Sacred Tabernacle, 
its actual construction and its erection. Then follow 
in Lev. 1-7 the various sacrifices and offerings which 
the people might bring to the Tabernacle ; then 
ch. 8-10, the setting apart of a priesthood to offer 
these sacrifices. Ch. 11-16 declare what was requi- 
site in the people that Jehovah might continue to 
dwell among them and they be suffered to bring 
their gifts to his Tabernacle, the laws of ceremonial 
purity which they must observe, together with the 
rites of cleansing in case of defilement, and finally 
the services of the annual day of Atonement. Then 
follow in the remainder of the book of Leviticus what 
have the appearance of miscellaneous prescriptions, 
but in reality are not so, since they are bound together 
by one common thought. They continue to urge in 
various lines of the ritual, of life and manners the 
obligations upon the people and the priests, which 
result from Jehovah's having fixed his habitation in 
the midst of them. A considerable section in this 
part of the book is by the critics commonly called 
the holiness-laws, since they are simply developments 
of the demand, Lev. 19 : 2, " Ye shall be holy; for I 
the LORD your God am holy." Upon this follow the 
laws respecting the sacred times when this holy 
1 See Ranke, " Untersuchungen," II., pp. 103 ff. 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



people are to present themselves before God in holy- 
convocations. The feast laws thus stand at the end 
of the Levitical legislation, as they did at the end of 
the Book of the Covenant, the crown, the culmina- 
tion of the whole, and are immediately followed, 
ch. 26, by the recital of the blessings to be shared by 
the obedient and the curses that shall be inflicted 
upon the disobedient. 

These laws, accordingly, are in their proper place, 
as the fit sequel to the series of connected statutes 
thus hastily reviewed. And they are further precisely 
adapted to their place. Some of these sacred seasons 
had been with sufficient fulness described before, as 
the occasion required their introduction. The weekly 
Sabbath was set apart at the creation and its remem- 
brance w r as freshly enjoined in the ten commandments 
proclaimed from the summit of Sinai. The Passover 
was instituted at the exodus. The day of Atonement, 
appointed when Nadab and Abihu met their death 
for unwarranted intrusion into the holy place, is 
added to and completes the laws of cleansing. The 
Sabbath, the Passover and the day of Atonement can 
hence be dismissed with a very few words. They are 
inserted for completeness in the list of times for which 
holy convocations are appointed ; but the bulk of the 
chapter is occupied with ceremonial services not pre- 
viously described, and especially those belonging to 
the two feasts which were simply mentioned in the 
Book of the Covenant, but no particulars given re- 
specting them. Thus both by what it contains and 
by what it omits, this chapter shows itself to be an 
integral part of a connected system of legislation, 



176 



THE FEAST LA WS 



not itself a complete, self-contained and separate law 
for the regulation of the feasts. 

In regard to the theorizing of the critics respect- 
ing the section of Leviticus in which this chapter is 
found, I avail myself of the following terse and ac- 
curate statement by Dr. Dillmann i 1 " While Ewald, 
Noldeke and Schrader explain the peculiar style of 
ch. 18-20 from the use of an older code by the Elo- 
hist, and Knobel derives ch. 17-20, parts of ch. 23, 24 
and 25, and ch. 26 from his Book of Wars, Graf in ch. 
18-23, 25, 26, and Kayser in ch. 17-26 sought to 
point out a collection of laws composed by Ezekiel, 
and subsequently interspersed with passages of the 
Elohist, in opposition to whom Noldeke, Kloster- 
mann and Kuenen proved the impossibility of its 
composition by Ezekiel ; whereupon Kuenen and 
Wellhausen declared it to be a collection formed after 
Ezekiel, and subsequently revised in the spirit of the 
Priest Code, which then Smend gives forth as current 
coin. For this fundamentally perverted hypothesis, 
built up on false critical principles, there is no ground 
or occasion in the contents or expressions of ch. 17-26. 
The truth is that in these chapters are contained 
in part the very oldest laws, which are not only pre- 
supposed in Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, but are also 
echoed in all the prophetical and other literature of 
the pre-exilic period." Dr. Dillmann's own hypothe- 
sis is that there were two revisions of these ancient 
laws, one by the Elohist, the other probably by the 
Jehovist, and that these were subsequently combined 
by the Redactor into the present text. The an- 

1 " Die Biicher Exodus und Leviticus," p. 533. 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



177 



tiquity of the laws we accept. As the literary labors 
which, it is so confidently affirmed, were subse- 
quently expended upon them, rest upon very uncertain 
and precarious proofs, however ingeniously and learn- 
edly adduced, we may be excused from accepting 
them for the present, and be allowed to wait at least 
until the critics come to some common understand- 
ing on the subject. 

The feast law just considered stands near the close 
of the Sinaitic legislation, and is almost immediately 
followed by the numbering of the people, the arrange- 
ment of the camp, the order of march, and the actual 
departure for the promised land. Then came the 
trespass for which they were condemned to wander 
forty years in the desert. At the end of the predicted 
term they find themselves in the plains of Moab, op- 
posite Jericho. The people are numbered afresh, and 
it is found that the entire generation sentenced to die 
in the wilderness had passed away. Moses nominated 
Joshua as his successor, and laid his hands upon him. 
And now when they were thus upon the point of 
entry into Canaan a supplementary law was given, 
which would have had no application before, but 
could no longer be delayed. The fact had been 
stated in the preceding law that sacrifices were to be 
offered at the several feasts, but no specifications had 
been given. Num. 28, 29 supply the necessary com- 
plement by furnishing ample details upon this point. 

Two laws yet remain to complete the legislation 
respecting the annual feasts : and these are as appro- 
priate to the occasion on which they were delivered, 
and as suitable for the purpose of completing pre- 
12 



i 7 8 



THE FEAST LA WS 



vious enactments, as those which we have already 
examined. The occasion for one was furnished by 
the first observance of the Passover after the people 
had left Egypt. Some persons who were ceremoni- 
ally defiled, were unable to partake of it, and permis- 
sion was given that they and all similarly affected in 
future might keep the Passover in a subsequent 
month, Num. 9 : I ff . It has been alleged as impair- 
ing the credibility of this narrative, that it is out of 
its true chronological position : but this is a mistake. 
It is introduced not at the time of the proper, but of 
the secondary Passover, for the sake of which it was 
mentioned at all. 

The remaining law, the last of the series, is found 
in Moses* final address to the people, Deut. 16. They 
were soon to be settled in Canaan and scattered in 
every quarter of the land. The legislator lifts his 
earnest and warning voice to remind them that these 
feasts must be kept not at their several homes, as the 
Passover had been in Egypt, but only at " the place 
which the LORD should choose to place his name 
there." They were about to occupy a land of idola- 
ters, where images and altars abounded everywhere, 
and the unity of the sanctuary was of the utmost im- 
portance for the preservation of the worship of the 
one true God. Hence the urgency and repetition 
with which this one essential matter of sacrificing no- 
where but at the place to be chosen by the LORD is 
pressed in the book of Deuteronomy. The law had 
not yet come into full and developed operation, many 
of its provisions being only practicable in Canaan, 
and many irregularities had been necessarily tolerated 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



179 



in the wilderness, Deut. 12:8 f.; but when they were 
securely and permanently established in the land 
which had been promised them, their happiness and 
welfare would lie in strict obedience to the law of 
God in this particular as in every other. 

The fact that the law in Deuteronomy does not re- 
peat the prescriptions of Leviticus and Numbers, is 
no indication, as the critics of the most recent school 
would persuade us, that it is of earlier date, and that 
the elaborate ceremonial which they describe was a 
subsequent growth. This is not a law giving full di- 
rections for the observance of the festivals. It limits 
itself designedly to the three pilgrimage feasts, and 
the main point insisted upon is the place of ob- 
servance. As in regard to the plague of leprosy, Deut. 
24 : 8 contents itself with a simple reference to laws 
previously given, so it is here. The ritual had been 
sufficiently set forth in other laws, which there was 
no need of repeating ; to do so would only encumber 
the law now given and cover up the very design with 
which the subject was mentioned at all. That silence 
is no proof of want of knowledge is explicitly admit- 
ted by Kuenen, 1 who says in relation to another mat- 
ter: "The Deuteronomist was acquainted with this 
custom, but for reasons sufficient for himself, does 
not expressly mention it." And Wellhausen 2 adds 
that " in Deuteronomy the most is left to existing 
usages, and only the one main matter is constantly 
emphasized that divine worship and consequently also 
the feasts could only be celebrated in Jerusalem." 

1 " Religion of Israel," II., p. 88. 

2 "Geschichte Israels," p. 94 ; Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 91. 



i8o 



THE FEAST LA WS 



And as we have seen already, no one of the feast laws 
is independent of the rest and complete in itself. 
Each has its own specific purpose to which it stead- 
fastly adheres, and its particular place in the system 
to which it belongs. No one repeats the rest or su- 
persedes them ; but all are mutually supplementary, 
and it is from the combination of the whole that the 
complete view of these ordinances is obtained. The 
laws are thus not only in entire harmony, but indis- 
pensable to one another, each resting upon and im- 
plying the existence of the rest ; so that the attempt 
to rend them from one another as though they were 
the products of distinct ages, or to assign them any 
other position than that which is plainly given to 
them in the inspired record, is unwarranted and inad- 
missible. 

From this general view of the mutual relationship 
and interdependence of the feast laws we may now 
proceed to particulars. We are told that the develop- 
ment of the several feasts in their successive stages 
is clearly traceable in these laws. 

First, it is alleged that the Passover was not orig- 
inally connected with the feast of Unleavened Bread, 
but their combination was effected at a later period. 
Kuenen 1 undertakes to exhibit this by arranging the 
laws in the following order: I. The Book of the 
Covenant, 23 : 15, speaks only of the feast of Unleav- 
ened Bread, and makes no mention of the Passover ; 
the dedication of the first-born, 22 : 30, took place on 
the eighth day after birth, and could, therefore, have 
no connection with any of the yearly feasts. 2. Ex. 

1 M Religion of Israel," II., p. 87. 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



I8x 



13:3-10 has again the feast of Unleavened Bread 
without the Passover, but it is enclosed between two 
laws relating to the first-born which shows "very 
plainly the endeavor to connect the dedication of the 
first-born " with this festival. 3. Ex. 34 : 18, the feast 
of Unleavened Bread is connected again with the ded- 
ication of the first-born, and here for the first time 
mention is made of " the sacrifice of the feast of the 
Passover/' ver. 25. 4. Deut. 16:1-8 combines the 
Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread under 
one common name, but gives no prominence to the pas- 
chal lamb, which is left in the background beside the 
first-born of oxen and sheep produced during the past 
year, and which were eaten at sacrificial meals during 
the following days of the feast. 5th and finally. Ex. 
12, which stands on the same platform with Lev. 23 
and Num. 9 and 28, makes the Passover meal the 
prominent thing, and its union with the feast of Un- 
leavened Bread is now complete. According to this 
scheme the feast of Unleavened Bread was originally 
a thing by itself and quite independent of the custom 
which prevailed of consecrating the firstlings of their 
cattle to God, whenever they were eight days old. 
Gradually the usage was formed of presenting the 
firstlings of the entire year at one particular season, 
that of the feast of Unleavened Bread. The service 
was then introduced of sacrificing a Passover lamb at 
the beginning of the feast ; but still the firstlings 
which were partaken of throughout the festal week 
were regarded as the main thing. Finally, however, 
the firstlings came to be reckoned the due of the 
priests and were no longer eaten by the offerers ; then 



182 



THE FEAST LA WS 



the Passover lamb alone remained in connection with 
the feast of Unleavened Bread, the two being thence- 
forward considered, one festival, which bore either 
name indifferently as in the New Testament. 

But this interesting piece of ritual history is a sheer 
invention of the critic and vanishes altogether upon 
examination. I remark upon it — 

i . The symmetry of this progressive scheme is spoiled 
by those critics who place Kuenen's third law prior 
to his first, L e., Ex. 34 before 23 ; for then " the sac- 
rifice of the feast of the Passover*' is distinctly named 
in the very first law as well as the feast of Unleavened 
Bread. But even if Kuenen's order is maintained it 
is unfortunate for his speculation that a phrase pre- 
cisely identical in signification occurs in ch. 23 itself. 
Vs. 17-19 are plainly supplementary to the three pre- 
ceding verses, adding some particulars respecting the 
observance of the feasts there enjoined. Ver. 17 thus 
attaches itself to ver. 14, declaring that at each of the 
annual feasts all the males should appear before Jeho- 
vah at his sanctuary. Ver. 19 connects with ver. 16, 
directing that at the feast of harvest or first-fruits, the 
first-fruits of the land should be brought to the house 
of God ; and those interpreters are probably correct 
in their conjecture who suppose that " seething the 
kid in its mother's milk " alludes to some pagan prac- 
tice at the time of the ingathering. In like manner 
the intervening ver. 18 must relate to ver. 15, so that 
the words, " Thou shalt not sacrifice the blood of my 
sacrifice with leavened bread ; neither shall the fat of 
my feast remain until the morning," must be a regu- 
lation concerning the feast of Unleavened Bread. It 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



I3 3 



appears then from the language of this law itself that 
there belonged to this feast a bloody sacrifice, includ- 
ing, as the term used always implies, a sacrificial meal, 
and that from it leaven was to be excluded. This 
sacrifice is further called a feast, and its fat must not 
be suffered to remain until the morning. Fat is 
doubtless used here as sometimes elsewhere, 1 of choice 
rich food ; and the meaning is that no part of the 
dainty flesh of the sacrifice must be left till the next 
day, Ex. 12 : 10. 

Dillmann insists that the verse has no special rela- 
tion to the Passover, but that its terms are to be taken 
in the utmost generality as a prohibition of leaven 
with any sacrifice and of delay in burning the fat des- 
tined for the altar at any of the feasts. But — 1. This 
is contradicted by 34:25, the most ancient and reli- 
able commentary upon its meaning, which expounds 
it of the Passover and its sacrificial meal. 2. Jehovah 
had as yet instituted in Israel no sacrifice and es- 
pecially none in connection with any feast, except 
the Passover. 3. The words "as I commanded thee" 
in this law, can have no other reference, as Dillmann 
admits, than to Ex. 12, 13. He alleges indeed that 
this clause, though original in 34: 18, is here interpo- 
lated by the Redactor, for which his only reason is 
that its presence in one passage can be accounted for 
on his critical hypothesis and in the other it can not. 
And so instead of accommodating his hypothesis to 
the facts, the facts are made to conform to his hy- 
pothesis. Wellhausen relieves the whole difficulty in 
the case by resorting to the ultima ratio criticorum 

1 Comp. Gen. 45 : 18, Deut. 32 : 14, Ps. 63 : 5, 81 : 16, Ezek. 34 : 3. 



THE FEAST LA WS 



and expunging vs. 17-19, which is simply confessing 
that they are an obstruction of which he can not rid 
himself otherwise. . 

2. Kuenen's second law affords no more support to 
his theory than his first, if Knobel, Kayser, Schrader 
and Dillmann are correct in their critical analysis ; 
they all connect Ex. 13 : 3-10 with the preceding ex- 
plicit mention of the Passover. 

3. The fact that the direction to consecrate the 
firstlings to the LORD stands in several of the laws 
in close proximity to the direction to observe the 
feast of Unleavened Bread does not prove that the 
firstlings were offered at this feast. It may be plau- 
sibly conjectured that this was the case, but it is no- 
where affirmed. Deut. 15 : 20 speaks of their being 
eaten year by year before the LORD in the place which 
the LORD shall choose, but gives no intimation of the 
season at which this should be done. It may be sup- 
posed that it would be most convenient to do this at 
some one of the annual festivals ; but this is not 
required, and nothing is definitely known about it. 
The conjunction in the law is sufficiently accounted 
for by their springing from the same root. It is 
upon the events of the exodus, which was com- 
memorated in the feast of Unleavened Bread, that the 
law uniformly rests the sanctity of the first-born in 
man and beast. The combination of the Passover 
with the feast of Unleavened Bread is, however, quite 
independent of the question whether firstlings were 
or were not presented at this feast ; for the rite of 
the Passover did not in any way originate from such 
presentation. 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



185 



4. The fourth and fifth in the series of feast laws, 
as these are arranged by Kuenen, lend no more sup- 
port to his hypothesis than those which we have 
already considered. In Deut. 16 : 1, 2, the word 
1 Passover ' is used in a comprehensive sense, em- 
bracing along with the paschal meal proper which 
introduced the feast, all the sacrificial meals of the 
entire seven days during which it lasted. The Pass- 
over thus becomes co-extensive with the feast of Un- 
leavened Bread itself. This has no parallel in the 
laws which he places last in order. In Ex. 12, Lev. 23, 
Num. 28 Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread 
are uniformly distinguished, the former being used 
in the strict sense and limited to the paschal lamb 
on the evening preceding the feast ; and in Num. 9 
' Passover ' plainly does not include the seven-day 
feast, for the children of Israel were again upon the 
march, 10: 11, before the term of seven days after 
the secondary Passover had expired. The only real 
parallel is the later usage of 2 Chron. 35 : 7-9 and the 
New Testament. So that if it be insisted upon that 
there has been a progress in this matter it amounts 
to just this, that the word ' Passover ' is in Deuter- 
onomy used in a wider sense than in the other feast 
laws. By this test, then, of the critic's own choosing, 
Deuteronomy, in which this advance was made, must 
be later than the Levitical law or the so-called Priest 
Code, and the hypothesis of the new school of criti- 
cism, which reverses this order, is found wanting. 

But the alleged development which has thus far 
engaged our attention is commonly subordinated to 
another, a change which is held to have taken place in 



1 86 THE FEAST LA WS 

the conception of the meaning and design of this 
feast. It is maintained that it was at first purely a 
nature-feast connected with the change of seasons, or 
as this was transfused with the spirit of the religion of 
Israel it was designed to express gratitude to Jehovah 
for the increase of the cattle and the products of the 
soil. But it came ultimately to have a historical and 
national meaning attached to it. Thus Wellhausen 1 
argues that the cycle of three annual feasts must 
be homogeneous in character. The names given to 
the second and third in the Book of the Covenant, 
Ex. 23 : 16, are the feast of harvest and the feast of 
ingathering, which sufficiently define their nature and 
purpose. The name of the feast which heads the 
list is invariably not Passover, but the feast of Un- 
leavened Bread. The second feast was separated 
from the first by an interval of seven weeks, which 
is defined, Deut. 16 : 9, as " seven weeks from such 
time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. ,, 
The feast of Unleavened Bread is equivalent, there- 
fore, to the beginning of harvest. This connection 
appears still further from the usage, Lev. 23 : 9 ff., of 
presenting a sheaf of the first-fruits at this feast. 
And thus the name of the feast becomes intelligible. 
Bread baked hastily or in sudden emergencies was 
unleavened, because there was no time for the slow 
process of leavening ; as when the Israelites left 
Egypt in haste, or Abraham prepared a quick meal 
for his guests or the witch of Endor for Saul. Dur- 
ing harvest, time was not taken to leaven the meal 

1 "Geschichte Israels," I., p. 87. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), 
p. 85. 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



18/ 



from the new grain, so that unleavened bread became 
characteristic of the season. 

The offering of firstlings of cattle is based on the 
same general principle as that of first-fruits. Cain 
and Abel offering respectively the produce of their 
fields and their flocks represent the simplest, most 
natural and universal form of sacrifice ; and as these 
recur annually they give rise to feasts. The three 
annual feasts belong to the one class, thanksgivings 
for the produce of the soil ; passover to the other, 
thanks for the increase of their flocks. The first- 
fruits of barley harvest were presented at the feast 
of Unleavened Bread. The earliest lambs and calves 
of spring were ready for sacrifice at the same time, 
and so they came to be joined to the same festival. 
Neither of these took their origin from the exodus. 
They were not established because of any historical 
event, but were natural expressions of the primitive 
piety respectively of agricultural and pastoral life, 
which prompted an offering unto God from the gifts 
of his bounty. 

The feast of Unleavened Bread, he further tells us, 
must have originated in Canaan, for the Israelites 
first learned agriculture from the Canaanites and bor- 
rowed from them the festivals connected with that 
mode of life, only transferring their homage from 
Baal to Jehovah. In regard to the sacrifice of first- 
lings traditions vary. In one of the oldest extant 
codes of law, the Book of the Covenant, which, from 
its agricultural presuppositions, is nevertheless sub- 
sequent to the settlement in Canaan, the feast of Un- 
leavened Bread is ordained, but no feast of firstlings 



1 88 



THE FEAST LA WS 



as yet existed, Ex. 22 : 30. The Jehovist tradition, 
however, gives a different version of the matter, viz., 
that the plea urged with Pharaoh for the exodus was 
that Israel might observe a feast to Jehovah in the 
wilderness, and for this purpose they must take their 
sheep and oxen with them ; so that the pastoral feast, 
according to this authority, must have been pre- 
Mosaic, and was the ground of the exodus, not itself 
based upon it. This traditional connection came, 
however, in the course of time to be reversed, and the 
cause was transformed into the effect. It came to be 
supposed that the exodus was not for the sake of 
holding the feast, but that the feast was established 
with a view to the exodus. The yearly sacrifice of 
the first-born gave rise to the story that the first-born 
throughout the land of Egypt were smitten with pes- 
tilence to accomplish Israel's deliverance, and that 
this festival was instituted in commemoration of that 
event. An attempt was made also to account for a 
like origin of the feast of Unleavened Bread by the 
story of the extreme haste in which the Israelites 
were forced out of Egypt. 

This explanation, he goes on to say, glimmers 
through in earlier statutes, but it is completely estab- 
lished in Deuteronomy, whose centralizing tendency 
was promoted by severing this feast from its primitive 
association with individual life and linking it with 
national experiences. Instead of each pilgrim ex- 
pressing his personal gratitude to God for benefits 
which he had himself received, his thoughts were 
turned rather to those which were common to him 
with his fellow pilgrims, to God's goodness to Israel 



AND THE. PASSOVER. 



as a people. The deliverance from Egypt and the 
gift of Canaan conditioned all the blessings since ex- 
perienced in the land of promise ; andjively gratitude 
for the former embraced and contained within itself 
appreciation of the latter. Thankfulness for individual 
mercies was poured, as it were, into the common re- 
ceptacle and served but to heighten the sense of God's 
goodness to Israel. 

This radical transformation of the feast thus begun 
was carried to its last extreme in the Levitical code, 
which made the firstlings a perquisite of the priests. 
The festive meals, which they had previously afforded 
to the offerers, were thus summarily abolished. In- 
stead of these offerings on individual account certain 
formal and prescribed sacrifices were offered in the 
name of the whole people, a transaction in which they 
did not participate, but which was purely an affair of 
the priests. All that was left for the people was a 
frugal meal upon the paschal lamb at the initiation of 
the service. In the words of Wellhausen, 1 the gen- 
eral character of the feasts "is entirely changed. 
They no longer rest on the seasons and the fruits of 
the season, and indeed have no basis in the nature of 
things. They are simply statutory ordinances resting 
on a positive divine command, which at most was 
issued in commemoration of some historical event. 
Their relation to the first-fruits and firstlings is quite 
gone ; indeed these offerings have no longer any 
place in acts of worship, being transformed into a 
mere tax, which is holy only in name." This sounds 

1 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," Vol. XVIII., Art. Pentateuch, 
p. 5ii. 



THE FEAST LA WS 



like a pretty severe indictment. Let us see what it 
amounts to. 

I. We have found reason already to dispute the 
original identity of the passover and the annual offer- 
ing of firstlings, which is here so confidently assumed. 
Even if their joint presentation at the same season 
were to be admitted, which rests on plausible conjec- 
ture, not on positive proof, there is no ground what- 
ever for their identification. There is no intimation 
anywhere that the paschal lamb or any of the animals 
offered at the ensuing feast were or ever had been 
firstlings. According to Deut. 16:2, the Passover 
was to be sacrificed " of the flock and the herd/' 
This does not mean that the paschal supper, in the 
strict sense, might be an ox as well as a lamb. Dr. 
Robertson Smith 1 tells us, " The passover is a sacri- 
fice drawn from the flock or the herd," " slain on the 
evening of the first day of the feast." But this is 
plainly inconsistent with what immediately follows in 
the language of the law : " Seven days shalt thou eat 
unleavened bread therewith." Consequently the 
term " Passover," as here used, can only denote, as 
we have before seen, sacrifices offered day by day 
throughout the seven days of the feast ; not of course 
the burnt and sin offerings, Num. 28 : 19 ff., presented 
on public account, with which no sacrificial meals 
were connected, but vows and free-will offerings and 
peace-offerings which are specifically provided for, 
Num. 29:39. The same combination of lambs and 
bullocks at the Passover is found, 2 Chron. 35 : 7-9, 
long after the Priest Code had been established by the 
1 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," Vol. XVIII., Art. Passover, p. 343. 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



I 9 I 



confession of the critics themselves, and in a book 
written, as they declare, wholly in its interest. Kuenen 1 
explicitly owns the distinction : " It must gradually 
have become customary that the members of one 
family should eat the paschal lamb together, and that 
then the first-born of oxen and sheep that the past 
year had produced should be eaten at sacrificial meals 
on the following days of mazzoth. This is what the 
Deuteronomist found in existence. " 

2. The name " Passover M is of itself an insuperable 
obstacle to Wellhausen's hypothesis of the origin of 
the festival so called. He may well say, 2 " it is not 
clear what the name signifies," for it has absolutely 
no meaning as applied to a thank-offering of firstlings. 
Dr. Robertson Smith, 3 with characteristic ingenuity, 
comes to the rescue, and urges that " the correspond- 
ing verb denotes some kind of religious performance, 
apparently a dance, in 1 Kin. 18:26." We are to 
presume, then, that it was a festival, at which devo- 
tees executed a dance like that of the prophets of 
Baal or perchance modern dervishes. The brilliancy 
of this suggestion is as though one were to infer from 
the fact that " revolution M is derived from " revolve," 
that the English Revolution was so called because it 
was customary to carry revolvers, and therefore it 
could not have taken place in 1688, as has been com- 
monly supposed, but must be assigned to some period 
subsequent to Col. Colt's invention in 1835. 

This word nt)3 (passover) has given not a little em- 

1 "Religion of Israel," I., p. 93. 

2 " Geschichte," p. 89. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 87. 

3 Ubi supra. 



192 



THE FEAST LA WS 



ployment to the critics, who have sought each in his 
own way to adapt it to his own peculiar hypothesis. 
Apart from the ridiculous conceit of George 1 that 
the writer of Ex. 12 : 11 intimates its derivation from 
"jlTSH (haste), it has been explained of passing over 
the Red Sea or the Jordan, or the sun passing over 
into the constellation Aries, or the winter passing over 
into spring, or shepherds with their flocks passing 
over from their huts and folds into the open pasture, 
or passing over into the hazards and perils of a new 
year, or some deity placated by sacrifice passing over 
the first-born child of a family instead of claiming it 
as his due. Widely various as these explanations are, 
they all involve the idea of an expiatory offering of 
some sort to atone for the past or to obtain divine 
protection or assistance for the future. In this exces- 
sive latitude of conjecture, the only certain guide to 
its signification is found in the meaning of the cog- 
nate verb, by which it is three times explained in Ex. 
12:13, 23, 27, and which is employed in the same 
sense by Isaiah 31:5; noS mean s to " pass over " in 
the sense of sparing, exempting from infliction. 

Kuenen 2 accepts this only authorized interpreta- 
tion, and affirms " that the paschal sacrifice is a sub- 
stitutional sacrifice, that the animal sacrificed takes 
the place of the first-born son, to whom Jahveh is 
considered to have a right and to lay claim. " And he 
goes on to elucidate his meaning : " Originally the 
father of every family on the eighth day after the 
birth of his first-born son offered up to Jahveh a re- 
demption-offering, which was called pigg (passover) 

1 "Die alteren Judischen Feste," p. 93. 2 Ibid., p. 92. 



AND THE PASSOVER, 



193 



for the reasons just indicated : viz., it induced Jah- 
veh to pass over or spare the child, to which he had 
a claim, and which, therefore, ought really to have 
been offered up to him. From its very nature this 
offering was of a private character: it was not and 
could not be congregational. Now it must gradually 
have become the custom to offer such an exemption- 
sacrifice annually, and in connection with this to com- 
bine it with one of the feasts that recurred annually 
with mazzoth." 

This, however, is leaving the ground of the laws 
entirely. The development of the Passover, which 
Kuenen here propounds to us, is not traced in the 
line of the feast laws, but constructed altogether out 
of his own imagination, without even the pretence of 
any authority on which to base it. The same is true 
of all those hypotheses reviewed in a former lecture, 
which maintain the pre-Mosaic origin of the Passover, 
and connect it with the expiatory rites usual at the 
spring festival of ancient pagan nations. The rela- 
tion assumed is purely conjectural and without evi- 
dence. Baur 1 regards the Passover as the mollified 
remnant of an ancient barbarous usage which originally 
demanded the sacrifice of the first-born child, for 
which a lamb was substituted, as the ram for Isaac. 
This view, especially in the more atrocious manner of 
its presentation by Nork, Ghillany and the like, is 
justly repelled by Wellhausen 2 in the following 
terms : " The view of certain scholars, mostly raid- 
ers upon Old Testament territory, that the slaying 

1 " Tubinger Zeitschrift," 1832, Heft L, pp. 49, 67. 

2 H Geschichte," p. 91. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 88. 

13 



i 9 4 



THE FEAST LA WS 



of the first-born child was originally the main matter 

in the Passover, scarcely deserves refutation 

There are certainly in history some attested examples 
of the surrender of an only or best-beloved child, but 
always as a voluntary and quite extraordinary deed. 
. . . . The sacrifice of human first-borns never was 
a regular and required payment in ancient times ; 
there are no traces of such an enormous blood-tax, 
but very many of the superior rank accorded to the 
oldest sons." 

In the absence of any historical testimony on the 
subject and in the limited extent of our information 
as to the religious festivals of Egypt or of any other 
pagan nation in the Mosaic age, it is certainly very 
precarious to allege that the Passover was borrowed 
in any of its characteristic features from any of them. 
If a connection be maintained between it and the 
spring festivals of the ancient world, it can only be 
in that general way in which all symbolical religions 
are bound together, the common points in whose 
ritual represent principles which have their seat in 
the universal nature of man ; while all in the religion 
of Israel is transfused with its own pure and exalted 
spirit by being taken into the service of Jehovah, and 
rendered fit to express and stimulate that worship 
which he demands and expects from Israel. 

No mention is made of any annual religious festi- 
val as observed by the patriarchs or by the children 
of- Israel during their residence in Egypt. The first 
intimation of the sort is in the demand upon Pharaoh 
to let the people go that they may hold a feast unto 
Jehovah in the wilderness. While this implies that 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



'95 



the idea of a religious feast was known to both the 
king and the people, doubtless from the usages of the 
Egyptians, it also implies that such a festival had not 
been observed by them before, inasmuch as it was 
necessary for them to leave the country for its cele- 
bration. Dillmann calls attention to the fact that 
Moses in his first mention of it to the people, Ex. 
12:21, calls it " the Passover/' as though it was some- 
thing with which they were already familiar : but all 
the seeming force of this suggestion grows out of his 
critical dissection of the chapter, by which it is sep- 
arated from ver. 1 1, where it is spoken of for the first 
time, and is indefinite in the Hebrew, " a Passover to 
Jehovah. " 

The feast of Unleavened Bread is declared by Well- 
hausen to be in its proper sense a harvest festival. 
This is an inference resting upon premises which do 
not warrant it. 1. It is nowhere affirmed or implied in 
the laws themselves ; whereas it is explicitly affirmed 
in the laws of every successive period, as the critics 
are pleased to classify them, that it was observed in 
commemoration of the exodus. Thus the reason 
given in the Book of the Covenant, Ex. 23 : 15, and 
in what Wellhausen calls the law of the two tables, 
Ex. 34: 18, and in Deuteronomy 16:3 for observing 
the feast of Unleavened Bread, is their coming forth 
out of the land of Egypt. And in Ex. 12, 13, which 
as we have seen is neither a record of conflicting tra- 
ditions nor law in the guise of history, but a simple 
trustworthy historical record, all the circumstances of 
the original institution of the Passover and of the 
feast of Unleavened Bread, together with the first 



196 



THE FEAST LA WS 



observance of the former on the night of the exodus, 
are stated with minute detail. The testimony is all 
of one purport, and there is nothing to contradict it 
or set it aside. The assertion 1 that the reference to 
the exodus in both Ex. 23 and 34 is a later addition, 
and not part of the original text, is made simply in 
the interest of a critical hypothesis, which those un- 
welcome words flatly contradict, and accordingly they 
must be gotten out of the way. Some astute critic 
might with equal reason draw the most formidable 
conclusions from the absence of all mention of the 
Passover or the feast of Unleavened Bread in the 
gospel of Mark, and when confronted by the fact that 
they are mentioned in repeated passages gravely in- 
sist that these must be interpolations from Matthew 
and Luke, inasmuch as Mark never referred to those 
festivals. 

2. The fact that the two remaining feasts of the 
cycle are harvest festivals, does not make it necessary 
to suppose that the feast of Unleavened Bread was 
one also, unless there was no other ground of gratitude 
to Jehovah, and no other reason for his worship than 
his bounty shown in the annual products of the soil. 
Why should they praise Jehovah for giving them the 
fruits of the earth and not for delivering them out of 
Egypt and giving them the land out of which these 
fruits sprang ? Why should this great initial benefit, 
which was the basis of every other, and really com- 
prehended every other, as Wellhausen himself takes 
pains to show, be alone unacknowledged ? It is this 
which is set forth as the ground of homage and obe- 
1 Wellhausen, " Geschichte," p. 89. 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



197 



dience in the preface to the ten commandments, 
Ex. 20 : 2 ; so likewise not only in the farewell ad- 
dress of Joshua, Josh. 24 : 5 ff., to the authenticity of 
which the critics might object, but in the book of 
Judges, 2 : 1, 6 : 8 ff., which they reckon one of their 
strongholds, and in the earliest prophets, Hos. 11 : 1, 
12 : 9, 13, 13:4; Am. 2 : 10, 3:1; Isa. 11 : 15, 16. 
When Jeroboam established his separatist worship, 
he sought to draw the people to his idolatrous sanctu- 
aries at Bethel and at Dan by the appeal, " Behold, 
thy God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the 
land of Egypt, " I Kin. 12 : 28. If anything could 
kindle the enthusiastic devotion of an Israelite to 
Jehovah his God and the God of his fathers, it was 
this. There was perfect harmony in the festal cycle, 
which celebrated in the opening year the God who 
made Israel a people and gave them the land flowing 
with milk and honey ; and then in the other festivals 
that followed in its course made grateful mention of 
his benefits bestowed upon them in that goodly land, 
comp. Deut. 26 : 8-10. 

3. To make the feast of Unleavened Bread a harvest 
festival is not only not required by the symmetry of 
the festal cycle, but actually mars that symmetry. A 
feast of seven days at the beginning of harvest, and 
a feast of but one day at its close, when all has been 
reaped and stored, is surely incongruous. The order 
should at least have been reversed, since a livelier 
and more profound gratitude is to be expected of 
him who has been put in actual and secure posses- 
sion of the divine gifts, than of him who holds them 
only in expectancy. And this view naturally leads 



198 



THE FEAST LA WS 



to the conclusion, actually maintained by Ewald, 
that the second was not an independent feast, but 
was a mere sequel or termination of the first, whose 
significance it shared ; so that the three annual Jeasts 
are virtually reduced to two. But in every law bear- 
ing upon the subject, they are uniformly reckoned 
three distinct feasts. Thus, too, results even more 
clearly than before the singular anomaly that the 
feast designed to testify the husbandman's joy and 
gratitude is celebrated before the reaping has begun, 
whereas the nature of the case demands what uni- 
versal experience attests, that the burst of joy comes 
when he has gathered his harvest home. 

4. While the terms applied in the Book of the 
Covenant to the second and third members of the 
festal series, the feast of Harvest and the feast of In- 
gathering, sufficiently describe their character, the 
designation of the first, the feast of Unleavened 
Bread, stands in no special relation to the harvest, 
while it is eminently appropriate to a historical com- 
memoration. A great variety of reasons have been 
suggested for the use of unleavened bread in the 
ritual in general and in this feast in particular. Philo 1 
suggests that while leaven is artificial, unleavened 
bread is more simple and natural, as it was also the 
primitive food of men, and as such employed in this 
spring festival, which commemorates the new-born 
earth. George, 2 that it was the coarse barley food 
of the ancients, which maintained its place in the 
ritual, though in progressive culture leavened wheat 

1 " De Septenario," § 19. 

* "Die alteren Judischen Feste," p. 225. 



AND THE PASSO VER. 



199 



bread had supplanted it in common use. Red- 
slob, 1 on the contrary, that made as it was of fine 
wheat flour it was the most delicate kind of bread 
and such as set before honored guests. Gramberg, 2 
that it derived its sacredness from association with 
legends such as those of Abraham, Gen. 18 : 6; Lot, 
19 : 3, and Gideon, Judg. 6 : 19. Baur, 3 that it is 
refraining from the bread in common use, such as 
they had eaten in the guilty past, and commencing 
anew in promise of a new and different life. Knobel, 
Wellhausen, Dillmann and others connect it with the 
harvest period, when bread is prepared hastily from 
the new grain without waiting for it to be leavened. 
But unleavened bread is nowhere mentioned as an 
ordinary accompaniment of the harvest. The food 
then eaten was parched corn, Ruth 2 : 14. First- 
fruits were offered either in the ear, Lev. 2 : 14, 23 : 10, 
or as leavened bread, 2 : 12, 23 : 17. Unleavened cakes 
were eaten in Gilgal, Josh. 5:11, not because it was 
the time of harvest, but of the Passover. And this 
would not at any rate account for its use at the 
paschal supper, where the unleavened bread must 
necessarily be of the old grain, Lev. 23 : 14, as in fact 
it may sometimes have been during the whole of the 
ensuing feast, at least in certain parts of the land. 

The prohibition of leaven in this feast and in the 
altar ceremonial, Lev. i : LI, must be similarly ex- 
plained. Unleavened bread was, as the Hebrew word 

1 " Die biblischen Angaben uber Stiftung und Grund der Pascha- 
feier," pp. 45, 46. 

2 " Religionsideen," p. 273. 

8 "Tttbinger Zeitschrift," 18.32, Heft I., p. 71. 



200 



THE FEAST LA WS 



denotes, pure. Leaven produces fermentation, which 
tends to corruption and decay ; it thus became the 
symbol of malice and wickedness, as unleavened bread 
of sincerity and truth, I Cor. 5 : 8. Dr. Dillmann ob- 
jects that if this were all, any other symbol of purity 
would have answered as well ; so that the selection 
of unleavened bread is still unaccounted for. But 
this is readily explained by the consideration that it 
must be an article of food, since the thing to be ex- 
pressed is communion with God in a sacred meal. 
And this symbolical signification is needed to account 
for the rigor with which all leaven was excluded from 
their houses and the eating of it forbidden upon pain 
of death, Ex. 12 : 15, 19. With this Deut. 16 : 3 is 
not inconsistent, where unleavened bread is called 
" the bread of affliction. " This does not mean that, 
as less palatable food, it was intended as the bread of 
humility or penitence or to remind them of the afflic- 
tion Of Egypt. In that case it would, like the bitter 
herbs, have been limited to the paschal meal instead of 
being continued throughout the entire seven days of 
this feast of joy and gratitude. It was indeed, as this 
passage declares, associated with the haste with which 
they left Egypt, and thus with their happy escape 
from bondage rather than with the bondage itself. 

Hupfeld 1 thinks that the sacrifice of the Passover 
and the unleavened bread have their parallel in the 
ram of consecration and the unleavened bread used 
in setting Aaron and his sons apart to the priesthood, 
Lev. 8 : 22 ff., and that it was designed as in some 
sort a priestly consecration of the entire people. But 

1 "De primitiva festorum ratione," Part I., pp. 23, 24. 



AND THE PASSOVER. 



201 



to this it is sufficient to reply that the flesh of the 
ram was boiled, not roasted ; and that uncircumcised 
foreigners as well as native Israelites were required to 
eat unleavened bread. Israel, atoned for by the sacri- 
fice of the Passover and freed from the leaven of 
Egypt and feeding upon pure bread, was consecrated 
not to the priesthood, but as a holy people in com- 
munion with a holy God. 

5. The sheaf of the first-fruits was to be waved 
before the Lord at the feast of Unleavened Bread ; 
but if this proves it to be a harvest festival, Well- 
hausen's conclusion on his own principles should be 
precisely the reverse of that which he actually draws. 
This regulation is found only in Lev. 23 : 9-14, an 
Elohist law, which we are told is the latest stratum 
of the whole. In all earlier laws the reason given for 
the observance is the exodus from Egypt. A histori- 
cal commemoration has, therefore, in the course of 
ages been converted into a thanksgiving for the prod- 
ucts of the earth, not vice versd, as he would per- 
suade us. In actual fact, however, neither the cere- 
mony nor the expression employed, Deut. 16 : 9, in 
allusion to it, " such time as thou beginnest to put the 
sickle to the corn," shows anything more than that 
the feast occurred in the season of harvest, though 
the time of its celebration was regulated not by that, 
but by the anniversary of the exodus. 

The alleged development or degradation of the 
feast is, therefore, at fault in every particular. The 
feast was a historical commemoration from the begin- 
ning. It was instituted not in Canaan, but at the 
Exodus. And the Passover is not an impoverished 



202 



THE FEAST LA WS. 



relic of the more abundant and joyous festivities of 
which all partook when their tables were laden with 
the annual sacrifice of first-born cattle. 

One word in conclusion as to these latter becoming 
the legal perquisites of the priests. If this marks a 
change, as Wellhausen avers, it is one in nowise de- 
structive of the religious character of the transaction. 
They were given to Jehovah, who claimed them as 
his own, in grateful recognition of his rich bounty. 
And whether he bestowed them upon the priests, his 
ministers, or gave them back in large part to the 
offerers, makes no difference in the spirit of piety 
which prompted the consecration. It is a gross mis- 
representation, therefore, to say that what had for- 
merly been " acts of worship, " were transformed into 
" a tax which is holy only in name." 

A difficulty has indeed been long felt in reconcil- 
ing Deut. 15 : 19, 20, according to which the first- 
lings of cattle were to be eaten by the owner before 
the LORD, and Num. 18 : 17, 18, which assigns their 
flesh to the priests. But they may be harmonized 
nevertheless, if from the animals on which he had a 
legal claim the priest considered himself bound to 
supply a table for the offerer and his friends. In re- 
gard, however, to this or any other obscurity in these 
ancient regulations the following sentence uttered by 
Wellhausen 1 in a different connection is worthy of 
consideration : " It is not surprising that much is ob- 
scure to us, which must have been self-evident to 
contemporaries. ,, 

1 " Geschichte," p. 94. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 91. 



VI. 

THE PASSOVER. 
(Continued). 



VI. 



THE PASSOVER— (continued). 
E have examined two points in which it is 



V V claimed that a gradual development is trace- 
able in the feast laws. We now come to a third, viz., 
the time at which the feast of Unleavened Bread was 
held. Here again it is affirmed that great and im- 
portant changes occurred in the course of ages, seri- 
ously affecting the nature of this feast. In the oldest 
laws, viz., those of the Book of the Covenant, Ex. 23, 
and its reproduction, Ex. 34, the spring feast is only 
in general terms assigned to the month Abib, the 
month of green ears. Its time was not fixed by 
statute, but was dependent on the state of the crop. 
This was still the case in Deuteronomy, although ac- 
cording to some of the critics, the advance was here 
made of fixing its duration as a period of seven days. 
Ultimately, however, and as the result of the central- 
ization of worship, which made it necessary that there 
should be definite and concerted times of pilgrimage, 
it was attached to given days of the month. It thus 
no longer took its inspiration from those agricultural 
conditions with which it was originally connected, 
but was regulated by the phases of the moon. This 
gave it an abstract, stereotyped, formal character, and 
severed it so completely from the hopes and fears of 
the husbandman and the joys of harvest, that a second- 




(205) 



206 



THE PASSO VER. 



ary festival was allowed and even made obligatory a 
month later, for those who by reason of defilement 
were unable to participate in it at the regular time. 

Hitzig maintains that the feast of Unleavened Bread 
was originally observed on the first day of the month 
Abib as the commemoration of the exodus, but was 
subsequently transferred to the middle of the month 
and extended to seven days. He urges that the 
words " month Abib," Ex. 23 : 15, 34 : 18, Deut. 16 : r, 
should be rendered " the new moon of Abib." In 
like manner he translates Ex. 13:4, "This day came 
ye out in the new moon of Abib," where the render- 
ing " month " would not afford a proper parallel to 
" day " at the beginning of the verse ; this conse- 
quently is claimed as a positive declaration that the 
exodus occurred, or was believed to have occurred, 
on the first day of the month. He draws a like in- 
ference from Ex. 12 : 41, " At the end of the four hun- 
dred and thirty years, even the self-same day it came 
to pass that all the hosts of the LORD went out from 
the land of Egypt." He argues from this that the 
day after the expiration of the four hundred and 
thirty years must have been new-year's day of the 
year following. " The self-same day " there referred 
to, however, is shown by the whole preceding context 
to have been the 14th day of the month, which is 
spoken of and emphasized again and again, and is 
uniformly represented as the day of Israel's leaving 
Egypt. Hitzig's view is inconsistent with all the 
statements as to the time of the exodus, with the 
constant meaning of the Hebrew word in question, 
which never has the sense of ' new moon ' in the 



THE PASSOVER. 



207 



Pentateuch, but always that of 4 month/ and with the 
fact that no prominence is accorded elsewhere in the 
ritual to the first day of the first month, not even in 
Num. 28, 29, where the beginnings of the months all 
stand upon a par, with the single exception of the 
first day of the seventh month, which is distinguished 
above the rest. It is besides inconsistent with the 
terms of the laws themselves, to which appeal is made 
to establish it. In every instance in which the dis- 
puted expression occurs, it is added, " thou shalt eat 
unleavened bread seven days." This express decla- 
ration that the festival was continued through seven 
days, shows that it was not in the new moon, but in 
the month Abib. And in Ex. 23 and 34, the words 
" as I commanded thee " contain an express allusion 
to the antecedent law in Ex. 12, 13, where the day is 
fixed beyond peradventure. Hitzig's desperate shift 
to get rid of this testimony by declaring that the 
words " thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, 
as I commanded thee," are an interpolation, is not 
only arbitrary and unauthorized, but is after all of no 
avail, since the immediately following words, " in the 
time appointed of the month Abib," likewise allude 
to the same preceding regulation. And how this al- 
leged interpolation came to be thrust into the middle 
of a sentence instead of added at the end, it might be 
difficult to explain. 

The allegation that unleavened bread would not 
have been eaten for seven days to commemorate 
Israel's hasty flight from Egypt, is sometimes an- 
swered by appealing to the fact that the abstinence 
from leaven thus imposed upon them lasted for sev- 



208 



THE PASSO VER. 



eral days, and that the entire term is here commem- 
orated. But, as we have seen already, the prohibi- 
tion of leaven at this feast did not take its rise from 
this in itself trivial circumstance. Unleavened bread 
was enjoined because of its symbolical meaning. Di- 
rection had been given to institute this festival before 
the exodus, though as this was intended for the fu- 
ture rather than the present, the people were at this 
time only bidden to use unleavened bread at the 
Passover meal. The whole significance of the occur- 
rence and the reason why it was recorded, is that the 
people were providentially restrained from partaking 
of this symbol of corruption at that critical period ; 
they were compelled to observe a sort of feast of Un- 
leavened Bread without intending it or being aware 
of its institution. The extension of the abstinence 
from leaven to seven days is simply its emphatic rep- 
etition during the usual festal period, thus exalting 
it to the dignity of a feast of the first order. 

This whimsical conceit of Hitzig has found few, if 
any, adherents beyond its originator. The majority 
of critics on the contrary insist that in the older Je- 
hovist laws, and even in that of Deuteronomy, the 
name of the month only is given in which the feast 
was to be held, but no day fixed for its observance. 
It was to be in the month Abib, that being the period 
at which barley, the earliest of the grains, began to 
ripen ; but the precise day is undetermined, that be- 
ing allowed to vary with the season. Whenever the 
harvest was ripe, each husbandman made his own 
presentation of first-fruits, and held his annual re- 
joicing at some neighboring sanctuary. There was 



THE PASSO VER. 



thus a festal period rather than one common feast, in 
which all participated unitedly. The early harvest 
in the warm basin of the Jordan was separated by a 
considerable interval from that which was reaped on 
the high lands of Ephraim or of Galilee. And each 
was celebrated alike at the time of its occurrence. 

But apart from the fact already demonstrated that 
the feast of Unleavened Bread was not properly a 
harvest festival and its time could not therefore have 
been dependent on that which it was not designed to 
celebrate, this fluctuating observance is inconsistent 
with the explicit language of all the laws relating to 
the subject from first to last. Ex. 23 and 34 direct 
that the feast should be held " in the time appointed 
of the month Abib ; for in it thou earnest out from 
Egypt." It was accordingly regulated by the anni- 
versary of the exodus, and must therefore have been 
at not a shifting but a fixed and definite period. Ex. 
13 : 3, 4, which is also claimed as belonging to the 
Jehovist legislation, is similarly explicit: " Remem- 
ber this day in which ye came out from Egypt, . . . . 
this day came ye out in the month Abib." So, too, 
Deuteronomy 16, which says: " Observe the month 
Abib and keep the Passover unto the LORD thy God ; 
for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought 
thee forth out of Egypt by night "; and further di- 
rects the eating of unleavened bread, " that thou 
mayest remember the day when thou earnest forth 
out of the land of Egypt "; and yet again enjoins 
the sacrificing of the Passover, which introduced the 
feast, " at the season that thou earnest forth out of 
Egypt." 

14 



210 



THE PASSOVER. 



It is, moreover, fatal to the hypothesis that Deuter- 
onomy should describe the time of the feast in indefi- 
nite terms. Deuteronomy, the critics claim, intro- 
duced centralization of worship. Feasts that might 
previously be celebrated on 11 every threshing floor," 
Hos. 9 : I, or at contiguous sanctuaries by each neigh- 
borhood or even separate household, must thence- 
forward be observed by the people as a whole at one 
common sanctuary. An essential requisite in such 
an arrangement is a fixed and definite time for the 
observance, which would be understood alike by all. 
The scheme would necessarily be impracticable with- 
out it. As then Deuteronomy plainly enjoins such 
common pilgrimages, it must have assigned to them 
certain and universally intelligible dates. The day 
on which it was to be observed must have been un- 
ambiguously settled by this reference to the well- 
known date of the exodus, even though its number 
in the month is not stated. But if this be so in 
Deuteronomy the similar expressions in Exodus must 
also have a determinate signification. All ground is 
thus cut off for the assumption that there was ever 
any variation in the time of the feast whether from 
year to year, or in different localities in the land. 

In the so-called Elohistic laws, which according to 
the new departure in criticism are to be reckoned 
post-exilic, definite dates are given. Here, however, 
George and Wellhausen tell us that they find evi- 
dence of still further development. George 1 says 
that in Ex. 12 : 18, the feast of Unleavened Bread 
begins on the fourteenth day at even, and extends 

1 " Die alteren Jlidischen Feste " p. 243 f. 



THE PASSO VER. 



211 



to the one and twentieth day at even, with which 
Ezek. 45 : 21 agrees. But in Lev. 23 : 5, 6, and Num. 
28 : 16, 17, the Passover is observed on the fourteenth 
day at even, and the feast of Unleavened Bread does 
not commence until the fifteenth, from which time 
it extends seven days ; thus making the continuance 
of the whole eight days instead of seven. This re- 
sulted, as he informs us, from the change which then 
took place in the diurnal mode of reckoning. In- 
stead of estimating the day as formerly from the 
evening, they began with the morning. The evening 
of the fourteenth, on which the paschal meal was 
eaten, was too important to be abandoned ; and con- 
sequently it imparted its sacredness to the entire day 
to which it belonged. And hence Josephus 1 says 
that the feast of Unleavened Bread continues seven 
days when the Passover is not included, but includ- 
ing the Passover it is a feast of eight days. 

Wellhausen 2 also insists upon a similar prolonga- 
tion of the feast, not, however, in the Elohist laws 
compared with one another, but compared with Deu- 
teronomy. In Deut. 16:4, 8, he says that the even- 
ing of the Passover is reckoned the first day of the 
festal week, which is not the case in Lev. 23 : 6, 
Num. 28:17, Ex. 12:18, where the feast of Un- 
leavened Bread begins on the fifteenth and ends with 
the twenty-first. A day is thus added to the feast, 
and that not an ordinary day, but one of special 
solemnity, this being the character which attached to 
the first day of the festal week ; and this is further- 

1 "Antiquities," ih\, 10, 5, and ii., 15, 1. 

2 " Geschichte," p. 107 f; Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 104. 



212 



THE PASSO VER. 



more the day immediately following the Passover, 
on which Deut. 16:7 allowed the pilgrims to return 
home. 

But these critics merely succeed in showing their 
eagerness to create a difficulty where none whatever 
exists. The circumstance, that they are not even 
agreed where the difficulty is, is somewhat damaging at 
the outset to the impression of its formidable charac- 
ter, which might otherwise have been made upon us. 
Exodus says that unleavened bread is to be eaten 
from the fourteenth at even for seven days, until the 
twenty-first at even. Leviticus and Numbers say 
that Passover is to be observed on the evening of the 
fourteenth, but that the feast of Unleavened Bread 
properly begins with the morning of the fifteenth and 
lasts seven days ; it will thus extend precisely as be- 
fore to the close of the twenty-first. And it is also 
perfectly easy to see how Josephus could under these 
circumstances call the feast one of eight days, inas- 
much as it covers parts of eight different days, if 
these be reckoned to begin with the morning, whereas 
in strictness it lasts but seven days, counting from 
evening to evening, comp. Mat. 26 : 17. If I speak of 
one o'clock at night, or one o'clock in the morning, I 
would be understood to mean precisely the same 
point of time, only in the one case it would be reck- 
oned as if it were attached to the day before, and in 
the other case to the day after. And if I were to 
arrive at Boston on one day at noon and leave the 
next day at the same hour, I might say that I had 
been there one day, which would be measuring the 
interval precisely, or that I had been there two days, 



THE PASSO VER. 



213 



which though somewhat inexact would be readily un- 
derstood. I believe that no critic has ever found a 
discrepancy between Gen. 17:12, which requires a 
child to be circumcised when he is eight days old, 
and Lev. 12:3, which appoints it upon the eighth 
day, though by rigid calculation he would then be 
but seven days old. All are familiar with instances 
in the New Testament of this popular mode of reck- 
oning among the Hebrews, as the three days of 
Christ's abode in the grave, and eight days used to 
denote a week, John 20 : 26, Luke 9 : 28, comp. 
Mat. 17:1, Mark 9:2; and some older people than 
children have been puzzled by the inquiry whether 
the year 1800 is the last of the eighteenth century, 
or the first of the nineteenth. 

Wellhausen acted discreetly, therefore, in retreating 
from the position taken up by George and in owning 
that the passages which the latter sought to set at 
variance are really harmonious. But his own entrench- 
ments are not a whit stronger. He says that " the 
first feast day in Deuteronomy is the day on the 
evening of which the Passover falls, and it is followed 
not by seven, but by six days, whereas in the Priest 
Code the observance extends from the fourteenth 
to the twenty-first of the month, Ex. 12: 18. " This 
is certainly a most extraordinary comment. Deut. 
16 : 2 ff. enjoins the eating of unleavened bread seven 
days, then speaks of the Passover meal and adds : 
" Six days shalt thou eat unleavened bread ; and on 
the seventh day shall be an fn^y (a solemn assem- 
bly) to the LORD thy God." From this he infers, if 
his words have any meaning, that unleavened bread 



214 



THE PASSOVER. 



was not eaten on the seventh day ; its use terminated 
with the sixth, and the additional day requisite to 
make up the full number must be that of the Pass- 
over which preceded. Imagine a father writing to 
his absent son : " My boy, we wish you at home. You 
may leave your city restaurant and take your meals 
with us for the next seven days. We shall have 
something good to eat for six days and the seventh 
will be Thanksgiving day." Would any one but a 
German critic imagine that the old gentleman meant 
to say that on Thanksgiving day there would be noth- 
ing good to eat ? Or would any one else have ever 
dreamed that on the seventh, which was one of the 
two great days of the feast of Unleavened Bread, un- 
leavened bread was not to be eaten ? The term J-)1^3? 
(solemn assembly) here applied to the last day of Un- 
leavened Bread is the same that in Lev. 23 : 36, and 
Num. 28 : 35 is used of the day succeeding the feast 
of Tabernacles, which concludes the entire festal series 
of the year. But there is nothing in the etymology or 
use of the word to justify the inference that it is a 
day additional to the proper festival in this instance 
where the contrary is expressly declared. 

The permission given Deut. 16:7, " Thou shalt 
turn in the morning (after the Passover) and go unto 
thy tents," has been explained 1 to mean after the en- 
tire feast of seven days is ended ; but the immediate 
connection appears to relate to the paschal meal 
proper and not to all the Passover offerings. Riehm 2 
insists that the intention can not possibly be to allow 

1 So by Gerhard, quoted by Riehm. 

* " Die Gesetzgebung Mosis im Lande Mcab," p. 51. 



THE PASSOVER. 



215 



the pilgrims to return home on the morning after the 
paschal lamb was eaten, and thus absent themselves 
from the solemn assembly ordained for the seventh 
day. He consequently interprets it of returning not 
to their homes, but to their lodgings in the city. But 
the phrase " go unto thy tents " need not refer to act- 
ual tents or temporary structures. It is proverbially 
used of a return home even with reference to solid 
and permanent abodes, 1 Kin. 12 : 16, 2 Chron. 10: 16. 
The Passover, Deut. 16:7, was to be eaten in the 
place which the LORD shall choose, not necessarily 
in the court of the sanctuary, which could not contain 
the assembled multitudes ; but in the vicinity of the 
sanctuary each family partook of this sacred meal in 
its own separate apartment. 

Dillmann finds in this permission to pilgrims to re- 
turn to their homes indications of a new stage in the 
history of the ordinance. In Ex. 13:6 the seventh 
day of Unleavened Bread is declared to be a feast to 
the LORD : from which he infers that at the time rep- 
resented by that law the Passover was observed by 
each family at home as a domestic sacrifice, as it had 
been in Egypt ; and that later in the festal week a 
pilgrimage was made to the sanctuary so as to spend 
the seventh day there. Deuteronomy, however, in- 
troduced a change by requiring the Passover to be 
eaten at the sanctuary ; but in order that the pilgrims 
might not be obliged to absent themselves from home 
longer than before, they were suffered to leave when 
the Passover was ended, and were thus relieved from 
attendance at the solemn assembly held on the seventh 
day. All that is peculiar to Dr. Dillmann's view is 



2l6 



THE PASSO VER. 



drawn from his own imagination and is not found in 
the text. The utmost that can be said of it is that 
it would be consistent with the language of Ex. 13:6 
if this verse were isolated from all others bearing on 
the same subject. But it is not required by that 
verse, and there is nothing there or elsewhere to sug- 
gest it. " The seventh day shall be a feast unto the 
LORD " certainly does not mean that the pilgrimage 
was to be made on that day, but that it was to be 
observed at the sanctuary with the special services 
and ceremonies usual at pilgrimage feasts. One of 
the most marked of these was a "holy convocation " 
or "solemn assembly"; and as this is particularly no- 
ted in other passages as belonging to this day, it is 
doubtless intended by the expression before us ; and 
the great body of commentators have so understood 
it. When the pilgrims were to arrive at the sanctuary, 
or how long they were to remain, this passage does 
not inform us. Deuteronomy supplies this informa- 
tion. They must be present at the Passover, which 
was the keystone of the entire festival, but need not 
remain during the rest of the seven days. 

It was doubtless in consideration of the exigencies 
of the harvest season that this leave was granted. 
The pilgrims might or might not avail themselves of 
it. Devotion would prompt them to remain during 
the entire sacred term. But attendance at the holy 
convocations at the sanctuary was not in every case 
obligatory on those who resided at a distance. As 
they were not required to be present on the seventh 
day, neither were they on the first beyond attendance 
at the Passover in the evening with which it began. 



THE PASSOVER. 



217 



There is no inconsistency, therefore, in their being 
allowed to return home on the first day of Unleavened 
Bread, although a holy convocation was then held ; 
and it involved no violation of the sacredness of the 
day, which was not observed with the strictness of 
the weekly Sabbath. That the first day is not in ex- 
press terms named as a day of holy convocation in 
Ex. 13 or Deut. 16, we have before seen, involves no 
discrepancy with Ex. 12 : 16, Lev. 23 : 7, 8, Num. 28 : 
18, 25. Supreme stress is clearly laid upon the initial 
day as the one to be commemorated and the pivotal 
point of the entire celebration, the ground and basis 
of the whole; and as Dillmann 1 justly says : " That 
the first also was a chief day, is self-evident." 

It is further claimed that the ritual of the Passover 
underwent changes in the course of time. The com- 
mon opinion has been that several of the rites pre- 
scribed on its first observance in Egypt were peculiar 
to that occasion, and were due only to the special cir- 
cumstances of the case. The slaying of the lamb by 
the head of each family at his own house, the sprink- 
ling of the door-posts and lintels, and probably also 
the posture in which they partook of the lamb, with 
their loins girded, their shoes on their feet and their 
staff in their hand, were of this temporary character. 
They never recur again. God had not yet estab- 
lished his sanctuary in the midst of his people, and 
the Aaronic priesthood was not yet instituted. At a 
later time the Passover followed the usages of other 
sacrifices; the animal was slain at the altar; and the 
priests sprinkled the blood, 2 Chron. 30: 16 f., 35:11. 

1 " Die Bucher Exodus und Leviticus," p. 581. 



2l8 



THE PASSO VER. 



Dillmann very needlessly presses the letter of Ex. 
12:24 in reference not merely to the ordinance as 
such, but to all the details before described. The 
complete change of circumstances necessarily led to 
a corresponding modification in the mode of observ- 
ance. 

Wellhausen 1 finds a significant change in the direc- 
tions respecting the flesh of the lamb. The ancient, 
and even in later times, the general custom, he says, 
was to boil meat. The word 5tDi (boil) occurs very 
frequently, but ^bil (roast) is comparatively rare. 
The flesh of sacrifices was always boiled. But the 
better class of people came to prefer their meat 
roasted. And so the sons of Eli demanded of the 
worshippers, " Give flesh to roast for the priest ; for 
he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw," 1 Sam. 
2:15. Now in Deut. 16: 7, they were not bidden to 
" roast " it, as it is rendered in the authorized version. 
The word used is 3ffi!2> the same that is employed, 
Ex. 12 -9, in the prohibition, "not sodden at all with 
water." According to the former passage it was to 
be boiled ; according to the latter it must not be 
boiled, but roasted. Boiling had passed out of fashion, 
and roasting had come into vogue. But unfortunate- 
ly for this view of the case, 2 Chron. 35:13 also uses 
this very word 5®3 of the preparation of the Pass- 
over, though Chronicles is always represented as such 
a stickler for the Priest Code, in which roasting was so 
rigorously prescribed. It uses this word, moreover, 
both of roasting and of boiling, uniting in the same 
sentence JflDJl w ^h fire, and m pots, showing 

1 " Geschichte," p. 70. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 68. 



THE PASSOVER. 



219 



that the word has neither the specific sense of boil- 
ing or roasting, but the general meaning " to cook" 
in any mode. Exodus gives specific directions that 
the lamb must not be boiled, but roasted. Deuter- 
onomy simply speaks of cooking it, without particular- 
izing the mode, assuming that the proper style of 
preparation was known, and that no further explana- 
tion was necessary. 

It is further charged that the Levitical law alters 
the whole character of the festal celebrations by the 
substitution of public sacrifices for those which had 
previously been offered on individual account. Thus 
Wellhausen r 1 " The celebration proper is exhausted 
in prescribed public sacrifices. There were offered 
day by day at the Passover, besides the continual 
burnt-offering, two bullocks, one ram, seven lambs as 
a burnt-offering, and a he-goat as a sin-offering. Ad- 
ditional free-will offerings of individuals are not ex- 
cluded, but they are subordinate. Elsewhere both in 
the older practice, 1 Sam. 1 14 ff., and in the law, Ex. 
23 : 18, the feast-offering was always associated with 
a meal, and was hence a private sacrifice. Deuteron- 
omy directs that the poor and needy classes should 
be invited to these sacrificial entertainments. This 
is an advance which stands much nearer the old sacri- 
ficial idea of communion between God and men than 
those solitary general church sacrifices." 

The transition here affirmed from private to public 
sacrifices is altogether imaginary. Both subsisted 
side by side from the beginning to the end. The ap- 
parent development on which Wellhausen insists, is 

1 " Geschichte," p. 102. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 99. 



220 



THE PASSO VER. 



simply created by the critical assumption which rends 
asunder laws, that form related parts of one connected 
system of legislation. Deuteronomy does not repeat 
the ritual of Leviticus and Numbers, for that had 
been detailed sufficiently in its proper place. It 
steadfastly adheres to its own purpose and aim. Well- 
hausen himself says, " In Deuteronomy almost 
everything is left to existing usage, and only the one 
main matter insisted on, that divine worship, and con- 
sequently the feasts too, must be celebrated only in 
Jerusalem. ,, With this view of the design of the 
book no presumption arises against the existence of 
the scheme of festal offerings enjoined in Num. 28, 
that no allusion is made to it in Deuteronomy. 
There was no occasion to make such allusion. This 
book concerns itself with the offerings which the 
people themselves were to bring for themselves as in- 
dividuals and as families rather than with those which 
the priests were to offer in the name of the congre- 
gation. And that Leviticus and Numbers do not 
exclude the private offerings of the people is explicitly 
declared, Num. 29 : 39 : " These things ye shall do 
unto the Lord in your set feasts beside your vows 
and your free-will offerings, for your burnt-offerings 
and for your meat-offerings, and for your drink-offer- 
ings, and for your peace - offerings and again in 
similar terms, Lev. 23 : 38. This too is somewhat un- 
graciously admitted by Wellhausen, his admission 
being qualified by the gratuitous assertion that these 
latter are subordinate to the public sacrifices. There 
is no subordination about it. The one was a matter 

1 " Geschichte Israels," p. 94. Prolegomena (Eng. Trans.), p. 91. 



THE PASSO VER. 



221 



of statute, and full specifications are consequently- 
given. The other was wholly left to the devout feel- 
ings of the offerer, upon which no restriction what- 
ever was laid. The spontaneous piety which he 
represents as characteristic of the early stages of Is- 
rael's religion received no check from the ritual legis- 
lation, which afforded it free vent at all times. The 
public offerings did not come in subsequently to 
crowd out those that had formerly been presented by 
individuals. They were the framework and support 
of the edifice of Israel's worship, which was filled in, 
completed and beautified, made habitable and pre- 
cious in the eyes of the LORD by the numberless acts 
of piety and devotion of the thronging worshippers. 

There is still one other respect in which the critics 
claim to be able to trace a development in the feasts, 
viz., the place of their celebration. The earlier laws, 
it is held, bind them to no one locality. They were 
celebrated everywhere. Each neighborhood had its 
shrine and its annual festivities. The larger places 
doubtless had more showy sanctuaries, and they at- 
tracted larger crowds of pilgrims and from remoter 
parts. Some sanctuaries may have been frequented 
more at one season, others at another. The worship- 
per thus resorted to the sanctuary whenever the 
occasion arose that called forth his homage. The 
first sheaf gathered from his ground could be offered 
to the Lord as soon as it was reaped, and immediate 
expression could be given to the gratitude which the 
sense of God's bounty awakened within him. 

But Deuteronomy brought with it a momentous 
change. Abuses had sprung up at the local sanctu- 



222 



THE PASSO VER. 



aries which brought them into disrepute, and the 
prophetic party resolved upon the centralization of 
worship as the only available remedy. They gave 
utterance to their ideas in the Deuteronomic code, 
by which they sought to suppress all sacrificial wor- 
ship except at one central sanctuary. It was therein 
ordained that all sacrifices and all feasts should thence- 
forth be limited to the place that the LORD should 
choose, by which is plainly meant the temple at Je- 
rusalem. The feasts thus removed to a distance from 
the residences of the people, were necessarily sepa- 
rated from their natural occasions and became formal, 
stereotyped and statutory ordinances instead of free 
and joyous expressions of the religious life, elicited 
by the fresh experience of God's ever-recurring 
bounty. The iteration with which Deut. 16 insists 
upon sacrificing the Passover in the place which the 
LORD should choose to place his name there, shows 
it to be a new requirement which it was apprehended 
that it would be difficult to enforce. In Leviticus 
and Numbers, on the other hand, no further solicitude 
was felt on this subject. Not a word is said respect- 
ing the place of observance. It is taken for granted 
that the feasts can be observed only at the sacred 
tabernacle. This seemed too obvious to call for re- 
mark or injunction. These laws accordingly emanate 
from a period when the struggle represented in Deu- 
teronomy was at an end, and had terminated in favor 
of the central sanctuary. All local sanctuaries had 
been suppressed, or the attachment of the people to 
them had been overcome, and the temple in Jerusa- 
lem had no longer a rival. 



THE PASSO VER. 



223 



But the alleged diversity of laws on this subject 
has no existence. The legislation of the Pentateuch in 
all its parts allows but one sanctuary. The Book of the 
Covenant, Ex. 23 : 19, and its reproduction, 34 : 26, or- 
dain that the first of the first-fruits should be brought 
"into the house of the Lord thy God/' one definite 
place. And 20 : 24, to which the critics so confidently 
appeal as sanctioning a multiplicity of altars, does not 
contemplate contemporaneous rival sanctuaries, but 
only successive spots at which God would reveal him- 
self to his people, while they were still without a set- 
tled habitation. When the covenant had been rati- 
fied, and God condescended to take up his abode in 
the midst of his people, the tabernacle was thencefor- 
ward the only place of acceptable sacrificial worship ; 
and the Levitical code bases itself upon this idea. In 
the great lawgiver's final address to the people, he 
speaks no longer in the brief and formal language of 
a statute, but in that of earnest exhortation and ad- 
monition, warning them of the danger and the sin of 
defection from Jehovah, and urging them to strict 
and faithful adherence to the laws which he had given. 
Foreseeing the dangers that would arise from their be- 
ing ensnared into attendance at the idolatrous temples 
of the Canaanites, he directs his utmost urgency to this 
source of their most immediate peril, reiterating his 
cautions upon this point again and again, and espe- 
cially enjoining it upon them to present all their sacri- 
fices and observe all their feasts at the place which 
the Lord would choose, after he had given them 
rest in the land which they were going in to possess. 
There is thus perfect harmony throughout all the 



224 



THE PASSO VER, 



laws on this subject ; the same spirit pervades the 
whole ; and there is but one uniform requirement. 

Finally, the critics make their appeal to the history. 
There, we are told, the same successive stages which 
they find indicated in the laws, can be recognized 
afresh in the recorded development of these institu- 
tions, as set forth in the historical books and the 
books of the prophets. This, it is claimed, supplies 
the ultimate and decisive test, demonstrating the cor- 
rectness of the results arrived at by the investigation 
of the laws, inasmuch as these are seen to match pre- 
cisely with the condition of things exhibited in the 
actual life of the people at distinct and determinate 
epochs. 

In Wellhausen's review of the history, he has much 
to say of the gradual rise of feasts from the presenta- 
tion of first-fruits, and of their annual observance at 
neighborhood sanctuaries, and the growth of larger 
sanctuaries toward the close of the period of the 
judges, and of the people resorting at different seasons 
to different sanctuaries, and of the increasing in- 
fluence of great royal temples; but the whole thing is 
spun out of his own brain. It is as purely fictitious 
as an astronomical map would be of the other side 
of the moon. The only pretence of any historical 
evidence is found in a jumble of defections from the 
worship of Jehovah, which historians and prophets 
combine to denounce as such, but w r hich our critic 
adduces as the genuine outgrowth of Israel's religion. 
He might as well gather the sentiments and practices 
of confessed outlaws and of vicious classes, and deduce 
from these the recognized statutes or the prevailing 



THE PASSOVER. 



225 



standard of public morality at different periods of a 
nation's history. 

But even thus his testimonies are few and far be- 
tween. A pagan festival at Shechem, mentioned in 
the book of Judges, 9 : 27, and Jeroboam's idolatrous 
feast at Bethel, established in open and avowed oppo- 
sition to the worship at Jerusalem, of which we learn 
in 1 Kin. 12:32, a passage which, from his point of 
view, he pronounces unreliable, are positively the 
only instances which he is able to adduce from 
the entire range of the historical books to confirm his 
confidently reiterated assertions that religious festi- 
vals were held elsewhere than at one legitimate sanc- 
tuary. If now his interpretation of the facts is cor- 
rect, and the annual feasts were as freely observed, 
as he imagines, at numerous sacred localities, and yet 
this fact nowhere comes out in the history, what are 
we to think of the critical principle which underlies 
all his reasoning that the silence of a historian re- 
specting an occurrence discredits its reality? If 
throughout every period of the history down to the 
reign of Josiah, these annual festivities were held at 
so many distinct places without any trace of it being 
preserved in any one of the historical books, why 
should the absence of any more explicit statements 
than we possess in these same histories respecting the 
observance of the Levitical ritual in its details be 
urged in proof of its non-existence ? 

In the paucity of authorities the degraded festivals 
denounced by Hosea as feasts of Baal and of which 
Amos speaks with loathing and abhorrence, are 
eagerly caught up as evidences. These excrescences 
i5 



226 



THE PASSOVER. 



which the prophets would pare away, these nuisances 
which they would abate, are held up before us by the 
critics not in their contrast with the purer worship 
maintained at the seat of the divine abode, which 
they attest and illustrate as spurious coin does the 
genuine and unadulterated, but as forms and manifes- 
tations of the religion of Jehovah. These aberrations 
from the ancient faith and from the pure worship of 
their fathers, of which Hosea and Amos speak in 
terms of unmitigated rebuke and indignation, afford 
the only proof that is forthcoming, that the Mosaic 
law, restricting the annual festivals to the one sanc- 
tuary where God had recorded his name, was not in 
existence. Not one passage can be adduced from 
the entire Old Testament to show that the Passover, 
or either of the other annual feasts or any national 
anniversary whatever was celebrated anywhere but at 
Shiloh or Jerusalem. 

The allusions to the annual festivals by Isaiah are 
scanty and incidental and yet sufficient to show their 
existence in his time. The regular festive cycle is 
plainly referred to, Isa. 29 : 1, which should be trans- 
lated, " Add ye year to year ; let the feasts run their 
round." In 1 : 13 he brings together quite a number 
of technical terms connected with festive celebrations, 
some of which are peculiar to the Levitical law which 
the critics would persuade us is post-exilic ; thus 
" the calling of assemblies," or holy convocation, as 
Ex. 12 : 16, Lev. 23, Num. 28 ; spoken of again, 4 : 5, 
in connection with Mount Zion ; " the solemn meet- 
ing " or solemn assembly, as Lev. 23 : 36, Num. 29 : 35, 
Deut. 16:8; spoken of likewise by his older contem- 



THE PASSOVER. 



227 



porary, Joel I : 14, 2 : 15, who connects it with Zion, 
and its idolatrous counterpart in the kingdom of 
Israel is referred to 2 Kin. 10 : 20, Amos 5:21, and 
" the appointed feasts. " Isaiah calls Zion, 33:20, 
" the city of our solemnities/' using here, as in the 
expression last cited, the word employed in Lev. 23 
to denote both the three pilgrimage feasts and the 
other annual festivals. And he affords us a glimpse 
of the impressive spectacle presented on these sacred 
occasions in 30 : 29, which should be translated, 
" Your song shall be as in the night of consecrating 
a feast, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into 
the mountain of Jehovah/' This solemn march in 
festive procession with joyful music to the temple 
has its counterpart in Ps. 42 : 4, where the Psalmist 
says : " I passed by with the throng, and marched 
with them to the house of God with the voice of joy 
and praise, a multitude keeping the feast." Gram- 
berg 1 is in doubt whether Isaiah here alludes to the 
Passover, since Exodus says nothing of glad songs 
accompanied by the flute, and whether he has not 
rather in mind the autumn feast of ingathering, which 
was celebrated in later times by illuminations and 
glad festivities like the Dionysia, or feasts of Bacchus. 
Wellhausen correctly identifies the feast here spoken 
of with what he and Dillmann translate " the night 
of watching," Ex. 12 142, but the majority of com- 
mentators " the night of observance " or celebration, 
that is to say, the feast observed at night, the Pass- 
over. And though Isaiah does not actually use the 
name, he unmistakably alludes to it a few verses 

1 " Religicmsideen," p. 284. 



228 



THE PASSOVER. 



later, 31 15, " The LORD of hosts will defend Jerusa- 
lem ; . . . . passing over he will preserve it," which 
likewise shows the meaning that he attached to the 
name of the festival ; whence it may fairly be in- 
ferred that it was to him not a harvest feast, but a 
historical commemoration of a great deliverance. 
Wellhausen calls attention to the fact that it is a 
prophet of Jerusalem who thus speaks of the festal 
cycle, and who ties the observance of the feasts to 
Zion. But we look in vain for testimony of a dif- 
ferent nature from any other quarter. There is not a 
word in any writing in the Old Testament to intimate 
that they ever were observed in whole or in part in 
any other locality than that of the tabernacle or 
temple. 

The first celebration of the Passover of which 
Wellhausen finds any record is that in the eighteenth 
year of king Josiah, 2 Kin. 23 : 21, 22, which he tells 
us was kept in accordance with the requirements of 
Deuteronomy and not those of Ex. 12. If he means 
anything more than that the lamb was now slain at 
the temple and its blood sprinkled on the altar in- 
stead of on the door-posts and lintel, we may well ask 
him where he obtained his information. All that is 
said of the mode of observance is contained in this 
single verse : " And the king commanded all the 
people, saying, Keep the Passover unto the LORD 
your God, as it is written in this book of the cove- 
nant/' The terms of the king's command seem to 
be drawn from Deut. 16: 1 (though see Ex. 12 148). 
And the critics claim with some plausibility that the 
reformation of Josiah took its impulse and shape from 



THE PASSOVER. 



229 



the book of Deuteronomy. 1 But as the book of 
Kings gives no account of the ritual observed in this 
instance, this question is of no consequence to us at 
present. 

Great stress is, however, laid upon the statement 
in ver. 22, " Surely there was not holden such a Pass- 
over from the days of the judges that judged Israel, 
nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the 
kings of Judah." This is interpreted to mean that 
this was the first Passover ever held in accordance 
with Deuteronomic law. Previously there had only 
been local celebrations, each neighborhood or district 
observing it in their own particular sanctuary. Now 
for the first time these were superseded and there 
was one celebration for the whole people. Well- 
hausen's idea is that the feast of Tabernacles may 
have been observed as a national festival in Jeru- 
salem at an earlier period, perhaps from the time of 
Solomon ; but that the Passover had never reached 
this distinction. And the peculiarity of Josiah's 
Passover was that it too was now made national. 
But — 1. This is importing a meaning into the text 
which is not there. This verse not only suggests no 
contrast with previous local celebrations, but there is 
not a line in the entire Old Testament to intimate 
that such a thing had ever been known as local cele- 
brations of the Passover. 2. This is scarcely consist- 
ent with the passages above cited from Isaiah, which 
plainly declare the celebration of the Passover at 
Jerusalem. 3. If 2 Chron. 30 is to be believed, 

1 See " The Old Testament in the Jewish Church," by Dr. Robert- 
son Smith, p. 425. 



230 



THE PASSOVER. 



there had been a national observance of the Passover 
in the reign of Hezekiah, which although repudiated 
by some, ver. 10, had yet not had its equal since the 
period of the schism, ver. 26. 4. The verse before 
us, even as interpreted by Wellhausen, necessarily 
implies that such national celebrations of the Pass- 
over at the sanctuary had taken place in the time of 
the judges, when as we learn from 1 Sam. 2 : 14, all 
Israel resorted to the tabernacle at Shiloh. 5. The 
natural suggestion of the verse is that the distinction 
of Josiah's Passover lay not in its being national as 
opposed to neighborhood celebrations, but in the 
universality of the attendance as opposed to the 
coming up of a part only of the people. This evi- 
dently lies in the words, " all the days of the kings 
of Israel and of the kings of Judah," that is to say, 
the whole duration of the schism, in which the ten 
tribes were debarred from attendance at Jerusalem, 
comp. the paraphrase of this verse in 2 Chron. 35 : 18. 
And the writer would have us understand that the 
enthusiastic eagerness with which the whole popula- 
tion now flocked from every part of the land to en- 
gage in this sacred service even exceeded that of the 
days of David and Solomon. 

According to Wellhausen this is the first mention 
of the Passover in any of the historical books. As 
he attributes no weight to the testimony either of 
Joshua or Chronicles, he gives no credence to the 
Passover at Gilgal, Josh. 5 : 10, nor to that of Solo- 
mon, 2 Chron. 8:13, nor to that of Hezekiah, 2 
Chron. 30. Redslob 1 will not even allow the his- 
1 " Stiftung und Grund der Paschafeier," p. 33. 



THE PASSOVER. 



231 



torical character of the Passover of Josiah, and says : 
" It is plain to see that the passage, 2 Kings 23 : 21- 
23, which gives an account of the Passover observed 
by him, is interpolated here by a different hand from 
another source." But accepting Wellhausen's view 
of the case, how comes it to pass that though three 
pilgrimage feasts are enjoined in what he considers 
the very oldest codes of law, Ex. 23 and 34, the first 
of the series is nowhere mentioned in the history 
until the reign of Josiah? Whatever explanation he 
may propose of this circumstance, the conclusion is 
not to be evaded on his own premises, that the ex- 
istence of a statute is not discredited by an omission 
on the part of the sacred historian to record its ob- 
servance. 

Another consideration which forces itself upon us 
is that he has utterly failed to verify in the history 
the development of the festival, which he claimed to 
have discovered in the feast laws in even so much as 
a single particular. The Passover is twice spoken of 
after the time of Josiah, viz. : by Ezekiel, 45 : 21-24, 
and as observed by the returned exiles, Ezra 6 : 19 ff. 
The comparison of these cases with one another and 
with the accounts given in Chronicles of the celebra- 
tion of the Passover, in which it is held that the 
writer reflects the usage of his own day rather than 
that of the period which he is describing, might ap- 
pear at first sight to favor the idea of progressive 
changes in certain respects. The critics affirm, as we 
have seen, that the earliest Passover laws do not fix 
it at a definite date. It was observed in the first 
month, but the precise time may have varied from year 



232 



THE PASSO VER. 



to year with the character of the season and the for- 
wardness of the harvest. But after it was transferred 
to the capital of the nation, and concert of action 
became necessary on the part of pilgrims, the Priest 
Code fixed it upon the fourteenth day of the month. 
In seeming correspondence with this the day of 
Josiah's Passover is not named in 2 Kin. 23 : 21, 22 ; 
but it is given as the fourteenth day of the first 
month in Ezekiel and Ezra, and so in the account 
given in Chronicles of Josiah's Passover, 2 Chron. 
35 : 1 ; while Hezekiah's Passover, 30 : 15, was on the 
fourteenth day of the second month, as allowed, 
Num. 9:11, when there had been any absolute hin- 
drance at the proper season. 

But the slightest examination will show that any 
inference from these premises would be invalid. For, 
1. In the brief allusion to the Passover in 2 Kin. 23, 
not even the month is named, though this is fixed in 
all the oldest codes, so called, Ex. 23, 34, and Deut. 
16. 2. The statement in 1 Kin. 12 : 32, 33, that Jero- 
boam ordained his feast on "the fifteenth day of the 
eighth month, even in the month which he had de- 
vised of his own heart/' implies that he had changed 
the month, but not the day ; and that the fifteenth 
was the proper day for Judah's feast of the seventh 
month, 1 Kin. 8 : 2, and for a festal observance in gen- 
eral ; which raises the presumption that the feast of 
the first month was also observed on the same day 
of the month, 3. If the Asaph named in the title of 
Ps. 81 as its author, was the seer and contemporary of 
David, 1 Chron. 16:7, 2 Chron. 29 : 30, we have here 
explicit testimony as to the time of the observance of 



THE PASSOVER. 



233 



the Passover at that period. Though explained by 
some authorities of the feast of Tabernacles, the 
evident allusion to the plague of the first-born, and 
the exodus as the occasion of the festival, determine 
it to be the Passover, ver. 3-5. "Blow the trumpet 
in the month, in the full moon for the day of our 
feast. For this is a statute for Israel, a law of the 
God of Jacob. This he ordained in Joseph for a 
testimony, when he went out over the land of Egypt/' 
i. e., to inflict that plague which set Israel free. And 
even though the Psalm be of later date, of which, 
however, there is no clear evidence, it still suggests a 
reason that was equally cogent from the beginning, 
for assigning the great pilgrimage feasts to the fif- 
teenth of the month, viz., that this was the time of 
the full moon. This commended itself as the most 
appropriate time, not from any superstitious or pagan 
association, but on account of the brightness of the 
nights it was far more favorable for journeying. 

But here we are confronted with those mysterious 
chapters in the latter part of the prophecy of Ezekiel, 
his vision of the temple rebuilt, the ritual restored, 
and the land distributed again among the tribes. 
This, we are told, is actually the first draught of the 
Levitical law. We see it in the process of formation. 
Ezekiel, from the part of a prophet, proceeds to ex- 
ercise the function of a legislator in regard to the 
sanctuary and the ceremonial, for which his priestly 
origin and perhaps priestly experience had fitted him. 
Smend 1 tells us that " the decisive importance of 
this section for the criticism of the Pentateuch was 

1 " Der Prophet Ezechiel," p. 312. 



234 



THE PASSOVER. 



first recognized by George and Vatke. It has rightly 
been called the key of the Old Testament. In fact 
it is only intelligible as an intermediate link between 
Deuteronomy and the Priest Code, and it thence fol- 
lows that the latter is exilic or post-exilic. This in- 
termediate position it holds not merely logically, but 
historically. The transformation here takes place 
before our eyes of ancient into modern Israel ; that 
is, in this case of Deuteronomy into the Priest Code." 
And he undertakes to exhibit in detail the evidence 
that the ritual prescriptions of Ezekiel must have 
preceded those of the Levitical law ; but his entire 
argument is based on his own prepossessions, and 
loses all its force if these are not first taken for granted. 

He tells us that " Ezekiel's feast legislation is abso- 
lutely inexplicable, if he was acquainted with the 
Priest Code ; on the contrary, the latter is built upon 
Ezekiel's enactments." In inquiring whether this is 
so, we shall first avail ourselves of Smend's clear 
presentation of their distinctive features. Ezekiel, 
45 : 1 8 ff., divides the year into two equal parts, and 
begins each with an expiatory sacrifice, offered on the 
first day of the first and seventh 1 months respectively. 
Each is followed a fortnight later by a seven-day 
feast, Passover, and the autumnal festival. No men- 
tion is made of the feast of Weeks, which occurs in 
every other feast law ; nor of the eighth day of Taber- 
nacles ; nor of sacrificial meals that are so prominent 
in Deuteronomy ; but only of sacrifices offered in the 

1 This is based on the supposition of an error in the text of ver. 
20, where for ' ' seventh day of the month," read "first day of the 
seventh month." 



THE PASSOVER. 



235 



name of the whole people, such as are prescribed in 
the Levitical code, but differing throughout in details. 
The same offerings are to be presented at each feast, 
a bullock for a sin-offering for the prince and people 
of the land, and daily during each term of seven days 
seven bullocks and seven rams for a burnt-offering, 
and a kid of the goats for a sin-offering. Instead of 
this Num. 28 prescribes for each day of the Passover 
two bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs for a burnt- 
offering and one goat for a sin-offering ; and at Tab- 
ernacles from thirteen to seven bullocks, two rams 
and fourteen lambs for a burnt-offering and one goat 
for a sin-offering. Ezekiel also says nothing of the 
presentation of the sheaf and the loaves of the first- 
fruits with their accompanying offerings or the dwell- 
ing in booths at Tabernacles. 

This, it is claimed, is a wholly new departure, and 
involves a radically different conception of the feasts 
from that of the older legislation, where festive meals 
and offerings on private account are the main thing. 
Ezekiel, like the Priest Code, has no interest except 
in the public sacrifices, while yet in the details of his 
prescriptions he deviates from the Priest Code in every 
particular. Why, it is asked, did not Ezekiel simply 
repeat the directions of the Priest Code, if he was ac- 
quainted with it, since it accomplished precisely the 
transformation of the festivals which he was seeking 
to effect ? Why depart from it perpetually in details 
which were quite unimportant and without any as- 
signable reason, while in principle he agrees with it 
throughout? Smend infers that Ezekiel could not 
have been acquainted with the Priest Code ; in fact, 



236 



THE PASSOVER. 



that it was not yet in existence. Ezekiel initiated a 
movement, which was further carried out in the Priest 
Code. This latter is simply the scheme of Ezekiel 
elaborated and modified. 

But this reasoning assumes the very thing at issue. 
The alleged change in the mode of observing the 
feasts, from joyous sacrificial meals to formal, stereo- 
typed and statutory sacrifices in the name of the peo- 
ple, is a pure fiction. We have seen already that the 
Levitical law does not exclude free-will offerings and 
festive meals, and that Deuteronomy does not ex- 
clude the public sacrifices ; that these laws are mu- 
tually supplementary, and presuppose each other. 
Though Ezekiel says nothing of the feast of Weeks, 
Smend claims that he did not intend to set aside the 
pilgrimages which Deuteronomy ordained for that 
day. There is indeed no paschal lamb ; but Smend 
imagines him to mean that the firstlings should be 
eaten at festive meals. He might as well say the 
same of Lev. 23 and Num. 28, which likewise say 
nothing of the paschal lamb, for the very sufficient 
reason that it had been already ordained in Ex. 12. 
Why does Ezekiel place the Passover on the four- 
teenth, while the other feast was on the fifteenth, but 
for the service of the paschal lamb which is presup- 
posed as too much a matter of course to require 
special mention? Ezekiel's scheme is simpler and 
less intricate, particularly as regards the sacrificial 
animals, than that of the Levitical law ; but who 
shall say on this ground which is the primary and 
which the secondary draught ? A reviser may sim- 
plify as well as elaborate. The alphabet is far less 



THE PASSOVER. 



237 



complicated than hieroglyphics. Ezekiel certainly- 
showed a disposition to simplify in reducing the old 
cycle of three feasts to two ; why may he not have 
done the same in the festal ceremonial ? 

But why, it is asked, did Ezekiel deviate so con- 
stantly from the Levitical law and in such petty de- 
tails for no imaginable reason ? It is as easy to re- 
verse the question, and quite as difficult to answer it ; 
why should the Priest Code differ in this petty man- 
ner from Ezekiel after he had ordained the- law on 
the express authority of the LORD God ? Ezekiel's 
whole sketch is ideal. It was not literally obeyed in 
a single particular. The temple was not rebuilt by 
his directions. The ceremonial was not restored as 
he prescribed. The land was not divided agreeably 
to his injunctions. This non-compliance on the part 
of those who honored him as a prophet of the LORD, 
shows that they understood his words not as com- 
mands which they were to obey, but as an idealized 
picture of the future which the LORD would bring 
to pass. It was no more designed to guide in the 
work of reconstruction than Jeremiah 31 : 38-40 was 
to be followed in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, 
or than Zechariah 2 : 4 enjoined their demolition. 
The departures from Levitical law above referred to 
may have been designed on the one hand to intimate 
that the ceremonial was not a finality and forever unal- 
terable ; and, on the other hand, like plain impossibili- 
ties, that are also incorporated in his scheme to sug- 
gest that they were not intended to be obeyed, so 
long, at least, as the Mosaic law held sway. There 
never could be any hesitation about the proper answer 



238 



THE PASSO VER. 



to the question whether their obedience was due to 
the vision of Ezekiel or to the statutes of Moses. 
The latter was law ; the former was a picture of the 
future, which in many respects may have been per- 
plexing, but it was not for the guidance of their con- 
duct. 

We have looked in every quarter for the promised 
evidence of a historical development of the feast of 
the Passover, and have not been able to discover it. 
Dr. Delitzsch, 1 who advocates the progressive develop- 
ment of the feasts to a certain extent, nevertheless 
uses the following language : " In the reconstruction 
of the course of development we are thrown entirely 
upon the Pentateuch ; the historical books give us no 
certain disclosures; for actual practice has at no time 
slavishly bound itself to the letter of the law, and con- 
sequently no sufficient proof of the existence or non- 
existence of legal norms can be drawn from the his- 
tory." 

We have now canvassed the whole ground covered 
by the critics in relation to the Passover. We have 
minutely examined all the discrepancies and contra- 
rieties which they allege in the history of its institu- 
tion in Ex. 12, 13; and all the proofs adduced to 
show that two or more accounts are there blended, 
whose conflicting representations render them untrust- 
worthy. But we found nothing to militate either 
against the unity of authorship or the truthfulness of 
the record. We have carefully examined the mutual 
relations of the several feast laws to one another and 

1 Riehm's " Handworterbuch des Biblischen Alterthums." Art. 
Passah, p. 1142. 



THE PASSO VER. 



239 



to the general body of the legislation in which they 
are imbedded, and have found that, instead of being 
distinct and isolated laws, conflicting in their provis- 
ions and representing different stages in the develop- 
ment of the ordinance, they are quite harmonious, 
and, in fact, presuppose and supplement each other. 
We have examined in succession the various particu- 
lars in which the growth of the Passover is said to 
be traceable in the laws, the original separateness, and 
subsequent combination of the Passover and the feast 
of Unleavened Bread, the change from a feast of first- 
fruits and firstlings to a historical commemoration, 
from a movable feast regulated by the changing 
time of harvest to its establishment on a fixed day of 
the month, the alleged modifications in the ritual, 
and particularly the change from voluntary offerings 
of an individual and domestic nature to public sacri- 
fices prescribed with unvarying uniformity, and from 
a neighborhood festival to its celebration at the na- 
tional capital ; and we have found no evidence of 
such development in any one direction. There is 
none discoverable in the laws, there is none discover- 
able in the history ; and even the mysterious vision 
of Ezekiel leaves the subject where it found it. In 
the absence then of any good reason for departing 
from the old and well-attested belief upon this sub- 
ject, we have a right to conclude that the Passover 
was from the beginning precisely what is recorded in 
the history of its institution, and what it is defined to 
be in the several Mosaic statutes. 



VII. 

THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



VII. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 

THE second feast in the Hebrew cycle is called 
in Ex. 23: 16 'the feast of Harvest/ It oc- 
curred at the end of harvest as the feast of Unleav- 
ened Bread did at the beginning, and was observed 
in acknowledgment of God's bounty shown in the 
ripened grain. In Ex. 34 : 22, Deut. 16 : 10, it is de- 
nominated ' the feast of Weeks/ since it was seven 
weeks after the Passover ; in Num. 28 : 26 i the day of 
the first-fruits' because of the presentation on that 
day at the sanctuary of bread made from the first- 
fruits of the wheat harvest. It is more familiarly 
known among us by its Greek name ' Pentecost ' 
(fifty), which it bore because of the interval of fifty 
days from the preceding feast. In the New Testa- 
ment it is associated with the outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit and the first ingathering into the Christian 
Church, the first-fruits of the great harvest of Re- 
demption. 

This feast was also called by the Jews £nS3? or 
solemn assembly. Josephus, who mentions this fact 
(Antiq. III., 10,6), betrays the most astonishing igno- 
rance of Hebrew by saying that the word means 
' fifty/ though it has not the slightest resemblance to 
that numeral. 

(243) 



244 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS, 



Wellhausen, 1 with more ingenuity than good sense, 
makes a different application of the name 1 feast of 
Weeks' in Ex. 34:22. According to his critical hy- 
pothesis, ver. 18, which speaks of the feast of Unleav- 
ened Bread, is not an original part of the text in which 
it stands, but has been transferred from 23 : 15. Ex- 
cluding this, he finds all three of the feasts mentioned 
together in ver. 22, 2 " the feast of Weeks, of the first- 
fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of Ingathering." 
The feast of Weeks he takes to be a common name 
for the first and second festivals, or rather for the en- 
tire joyful period of harvest embraced between them, 
though only celebrated in a festive manner at its two 
extremities. The suggestion that the text requires 
correction, because vs. 19-21 interrupt the connection 
as they stand at present, however plausible at first 
sight, is not decisive. The injunction to observe 
the three annual feasts instead of being given contin- 
uously as in 23: 15, 16, and as might naturally be 
expected, is interrupted by the insertion of another 
subject. They are first bidden to keep the feast of 
Unleavened Bread, ver. 18. Then comes a law for 
the sanctification of the first-born, vs. 19, 20, and of 
the Sabbath day, ver. 21. And after that follows the 
command to observe the two remaining feasts, ver. 
22. Their dislocation, it is said, is the work of some 
ignorant interpolator, who, not perceiving that all the 
feasts are named in ver. 22, undertook to remedy the 

1 u Geschichte," p. 89. 

2 In " Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Theologie," 1876, p. 554, he treats 
ver. 18 as genuine, and throws ver. 22 out of the text. But a critic 
may be allowed sometimes to change his mind. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



245 



supposed omission by inserting, ver. 18, a special or- 
der to observe the feast of Unleavened Bread. But 
the consecration of the first-born was by a very nat- 
ural association connected with the f^ast of Unleavened 
Bread, since both are alike traced to the last plague 
of Egypt, and hence they are similarly placed together 
in other laws. And that the law of the Sabbath is 
introduced by a like association is evident from the 
reason here given for its observance. " In ploughing- 
time and in harvest thou shalt rest." It is a digres- 
sion, to be sure, but such a digression as is easily 
explained. And if ver. 18 were an interpolation, it 
would still remain to be accounted for, that it was 
not inserted in immediate connection with the other 
feasts, but at such a remove from it ; and this would 
be as difficult to explain as that it should have been 
originally written as it now is. 

Hitzig 1 makes some very remarkable deductions 
from this difference of names, and some slight differ- 
ences in the forms of expression relative to this feast. 
In Ex. 23 : 16 it is called "the feast of Harvest, the 
first-fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in thy 
field." Now as barley was the first to mature of all 
the grains sown in the field, he infers that the feast 
here stands at the beginning of barley harvest, while 
the feast of Unleavened Bread according to his hy- 
pothesis, spoken of in a former lecture, was observed 
at the new moon of Abib, or on the first day of that 
month. In Ex. 34 : 22 it is called " the feast of Weeks, 
of the first-fruits of wheat harvest," and accordingly 
had been shifted from the first harvesting of barley 

^"Ostern und Pfingsten im Zweiten Dekalog," 1838. 



246 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



to that of wheat, which came later ; the designation 
6 feast of Weeks ' is interpreted to mean as many days 
as there are weeks in the lunar year, t. e. 7 fifty days 
reckoned from the preceding feast, which still stood 
on the first day of Abib. In Deut. 16 : 9, 10, the seven 
weeks to this feast are no longer reckoned from the 
first of Abib, but from " such time as thou beginnest 
to put the sickle to the corn, ,, which brings it later 
still and puts the feast where it subsequently re- 
mained, at the end of wheat harvest. 

But the word 1 first-fruits* t^lDS here used does 
not denote the very first grains that were reaped, and 
thus imply that the festival came at the beginning 
of the reaping instead of at the end. The time for 
grateful joy and thanksgiving is naturally at the ter- 
mination of harvest, when the crop has been success- 
fully stored, rather than at the outset when many 
contingencies are still possible to cloud the prospect. 
This appears further from the analogy of the succeed- 
ing feast, that of Ingathering, which was celebrated 
after the fruits had been collected. This same word 
tTTDS (first-fruits) is, Lev. 23 : 17, applied to the 
wave loaves presented before the LORD after the har- 
vest was over, and is different from that used of the 
sheaf of first-fruits (Jrp t £K*l)> ver. 10. If accordingly 
this festival belonged at the end of harvest, Ex. 23 : 16 
can not limit it to the harvest of barley ; for it ter- 
minates in the middle of the harvest period, and the 
anomaly would result of a harvest festival with no 
relation to the wheat, the chief of all the grains, which 
then would not have been gathered until after the 
feast. "Thy labors which thou hast sown in thy 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



247 



field " can not be limited to barley, but must embrace 
wheat as well ; so that the celebration must have been 
in reference to the entire harvest and have stood at 
its close. The time assigned to this feast in Ex. 23 
and 34 and Deut. 16 is, therefore, identical, notwith- 
standing the slight variations in the form of expres- 
sion, and the weeks in Ex. 34 are to be reckoned in 
the same manner as in Deut. 16, where it is more pre- 
cisely defined. 

The feast of Weeks lasted but a single day, while 
each of the other feasts continued seven days. It is 
not to be inferred from this that all were originally 
limited to one day, but that from the special interest 
attached to the Passover and Tabernacles, they were 
afterward prolonged : just as mention is made that, 
both at the dedication of Solomon's temple and 
the Passover of Hezekiah, the period of seven days 
was itself doubled on account of the enthusiasm of 
the occasion, 1 Kin. 8 : 65, 2 Chron. 30 : 23. That the 
feast of Unleavened Bread was in its origin limited 
to one day was maintained not only by Hitzig, who 
confined it to the day of the new moon, but also by 
others who conceived that the commemoration of the 
events of the exodus would naturally be at first re- 
stricted to one anniversary day. According to the 
uniform testimony of the Passover laws already re- 
viewed, however, the spring feast from the first cov- 
ered seven days. And the same w r as the case with 
the autumnal feast of Tabernacles. 

A full festal period was thus a term of seven days, 
the week being the first denomination of time larger 
than a day. The adoption of the number seven into 



243 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



the festal cycle was intended to link it with the sab- 
batical series, of which seven was the regulative factor. 
While the first and the third of the feasts lasted seven 
days each, the second had a similar association at- 
tached to it, though in a somewhat different manner, 
by being placed at seven times seven days remove 
from the preceding feast. The ordinary festal offer- 
ing day by day likewise had, combined with other 
animals, the invariable number of seven lambs, or in 
Tabernacles of twice seven, while the total number 
of bullocks offered in a gradually diminishing scale 
throughout the seven days of the feast was seventy or 
ten times seven. And besides this septenary link of 
connection there was the sabbatical idea itself. One 
or more days were set apart in each feast for special 
religious devotion ; labor was suspended and a holy 
convocation held, though the rigor of the abstinence 
from work was not so strict as upon the weekly Sab- 
bath. On the latter the command was, Ye shall do 
no work ; on the former, Ye shall do no servile work. 
All the sacred times were thus bound together into 
one common system, in their essence pervaded by 
the same idea, in their outward form marked by the 
prominence of the same sacred number. 

The brevity of the feast of Weeks as compared 
with the other principal annual festivals naturally 
suggests the idea of its sustaining to one or the 
other some relation of subordination. And the fact 
of its time being determined by a fixed interval be- 
tween it and its predecessor naturally raises the query 
whether they may not belong together. Accordingly 
Ewald devised an ingenious and remarkably symmet- 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



249 



rical scheme on the hypothesis that the feast of 
Weeks was primarily and properly an appendage of 
the feast of Unleavened Bread. He considered it 
the formal close of that seven-day festival, standing 
in the same relation to it as the eighth day of Taber- 
nacles to the preceding seven, not strictly a part of 
it, yet so attached to it as to bring the whole to a 
solemn and suitable termination. Only the feast of 
Weeks was separated from the body of the festival 
to which it belonged by the entire period of the in- 
tervening harvest season, which all received a con- 
secration from being enclosed within hallowed and 
festive limits. And the parallel was pushed still 
further by observing that each of the two principal 
feasts was in turn preceded by a special service, and 
this of a nature which had its analogy in the ordinary 
method of the ceremonial and in the ideas which it 
customarily embodied. " Just as every great sacri- 
fice may be initiated by an expiatory offering, and 
just as a suitable preparation and purification should 
form the commencement of every sacred action, so 
each of these two great annual^ festivals was preceded 
by a special festival of expiation, which was celebrated 
with great solemnity." 1 Tabernacles was thus pre- 
ceded by the annual day of Atonement, on the tenth 
of the month, and Unleavened Bread by the Passover, 
which though slain on the fourteenth was, at its origi- 
nal institution, selected and set apart on the tenth. 

The whole year was divided into two nearly equal 
portions. There was, first, the festal period, extend- 

1 Ewald's " Antiquities of Israel," translated (Boston, 1876), 
P. 357. 



250 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



ing from the middle of the first to the middle of the 
seventh month, within which all the festivals of the 
year were embraced. Then the remaining six months 
constituted a non-festal period, marked by the ab- 
sence of any sacred festival. The festal portion of 
the year was again divided between the two great 
feasts, the vernal and the autumnal feast, the former 
occurring in the first month and thus opening the 
year; the latter forming its centre and culmination in 
the seventh, to which was accorded the dignity of 
the sacred or sabbatical month. In Tabernacles the 
festal idea rose to its maximum, as was shown by the 
duplication of sacrifices and by the fact that pilgrims 
were required to remain not one day, as at Passover, 
but the whole seven days, and one beyond. And each 
of these great festivals, which thus marked and, as it 
were, guarded the limits of the festal portion of the 
year, was composed alike of three constituents of 
similar character ; first an expiation, then the main 
body of the feast lasting seven days, then one more 
day as a concluding festival at the end. 

The striking correspondence thus exhibited cer- 
tainly lends great attractiveness to this scheme, 
which has accordingly been extensively adopted. It 
is notwithstanding open to serious objections. 

1. The virtual reduction of the feasts to two is an 
evident departure from the genuine Hebrew concep- 
tion, as appears from the uniform triplicity of the 
festal laws, which from the beginning name three 
great feasts as so many distinct and separate festi- 
vals, the feast of Unleavened Bread, the feast of 
Weeks and the feast of Tabernacles. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



251 



2. This scheme assumes that Unleavened Bread like 
the feast of Weeks is mainly and distinctively a har- 
vest festival ; that they are so entirely of the same 
tenor and design that one can be regarded as the 
continuation of the other ; whereas the former was 
instituted in commemoration of the exodus, upon 
the anniversary of w r hich it was observed. It, there- 
fore, was historical in its intent and character, and 
properly speaking stood in no other relation to the 
harvest than that of conjunction in point of time ; 
while the feast of Weeks was in the strict and proper 
sense a harvest festival. There was no such con- 
gruity between the two, therefore, as brought one 
into the intimate relation to the other which Ewald's 
scheme supposes. 

3. This view also leads to the solecism, remarked 
upon in a former lecture, of celebrating the harvest 
feast before the harvest itself was reaped. George 1 
indeed says: u In itself considered it appears to be 
a matter of indifference whether a harvest feast is 
celebrated at the beginning or end of harvest ; and 
in our way of looking at the thing, it is more natural 
to observe the feast when the grain has been brought 

in from the field As, however, they were not 

content with the simple expression of thanks, but 
believed it to be incumbent on them to offer a part 
of the harvest unto God, and the first-fruits were 
selected for this purpose, the harvest feast must nec- 
essarily come at the beginning." The Jewish law- 
giver judged differently ; he put the ceremony of the 
sheaf of the first-fruits at the beginning of harvest, 

1 " Die alteren Jlidischen Feste," p. 260. 



252 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



but the harvest festival itself at the end. And upon 
his own view of the case George finds himself puz- 
zled to account for the observance of the feast of 
Weeks at all ; but finally concludes that the Passover 
had special relation to the barley harvest and the 
feast of Weeks to the wheat harvest. But why the 
inferior grain should be emphasized by a feast of 
seven days, and that which was chiefly valued and 
furnished the principal staple of their subsistence, 
should call for a feast of but one day, he does not 
explain. 

4. The historical association of the Passover likewise 
distinguishes it broadly from its assumed counterpart, 
the day of Atonement, which had no such association. 
The Passover was an initiatory expiation and an act 
of communion with God, in which the bitter herbs 
were suggestive of Egyptian bondage ; but the whole 
service, so far from having the stern and severe 
aspect which has sometimes been attributed to it, 
was on the contrary calculated to enkindle thankful 
and joyous recollections of a great deliverance. The 
day of Atonement, on the other hand, was the one 
fast of the Jewish calendar, a day of humiliation and 
penitence, in which all were to afflict their souls, and 
by significant and striking symbols the sins of the 
past year were atoned for and removed. 

5. The feast of Unleavened Bread was brought to 
a formal close by the services of its seventh day, 
which was observed as a Sabbath, Ex. 12 : 16, 13 : 6, 
and bears the same name m^JJ Deut. 16 : 8, that is 
applied to the eighth day or concluding festival of 
Tabernacles. And not only was unleavened bread not 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



253 



required to be eaten at the feast of Weeks, which was 
the special characteristic of the preceding festival, 
but leavened bread was actually directed to be offered 
to the LORD, which was not enjoined at any other 
feast or sacrifice. 

The true relation of this feast is best set forth by 
Hupfeld, 1 and this is in fact the most valuable and 
satisfactory result of his discussion of this whole sub- 
ject. While the Passover and feast of Unleavened 
Bread are distinctively commemorative of a great 
event in their national history, the divine deliverance 
from the bondage of Egypt, which brought them 
into being as a nation and as the Lord's people, the 
two remaining feasts are agricultural and are designed 
to give expression to their joyful thanksgiving for 
the products of the ground. They obviously form a 
class by themselves, therefore, having the same gen- 
eral design and tendency. Besides these, and preced- 
ing them both, was the presentation of the sheaf of 
first-fruits at the Passover, which was the first formal 
act in public recognition of God's annual bounty. 
The acknowledgment of God's goodness in the year 
in supplying the means of subsistence accordingly 
advanced by three successive stages to its climax, in 
which Pentecost held the intermediate position. 

There was first a barley sheaf, 2 brought at the be- 

1 "De primitiva et vera festorum ratione," Part 2. 

2 Wellhausen correctly infers from the special title, Lev. 23 : 9, 10, 
that in the plan of this chapter the presentation of the barley sheaf, 
though occurring at Passover, is separated from it and attached to 
what follows because it is regarded as preliminary to Pentecost. 
" Jahrb. fur Deutsche Theologie," XXII., p. 432. 



254 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



ginning of harvest to be waved before the LORD, 
accompanied by a lamb as a burnt-offering and an 
appropriate meat-offering, significant of consecration. 
This act was to be performed upon one of the days 
of the feast of Unleavened Bread, a day, therefore, 
which in this general sense belonged to a sacred term, 
but not one specially hallowed as a festal Sabbath by 
abstinence from toil and a holy convocation. This 
gave its consecration to the harvest season then be- 
ginning, and no one was allowed to eat from the new 
grain bread or parched corn or green ears, until this 
offering had first been brought to God. Then came 
the feast of Weeks at the close of harvest, when the 
joy and thankfulness of the husbandman had been 
correspondingly heightened ; this found its fit ex- 
pression not merely in a sacred ceremony as before, 
performed on one of the ordinary days of a feast 
which was instituted for a different purpose, but in 
a feast specially appointed for this sole end, and 
upon a day which was sacredly observed as a Sabbath 
with its holy convocation. Then not merely a single 
sheaf of barley was presented and waved before the 
Lord, but two loaves of leavened wheat bread ; the 
number was duplicated, 1 and instead of the crude 
material the final product prepared for human use 
was presented at the sanctuary, thus hallowing all 
the bread which they would use in their households 

1 The two loaves were to be made, Lev. 23 : 17, of two tenths of 
an ephah, or two omers, Ex. 16 : 36, of flour. As the word for sheaf, 
Lev. 23 : 10, 11, is also omer, it is not improbable that it was 

of such a size as to yield an omer of grain ; so that the quantity 
may have been precisely doubled. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



255 



day by day. And to this was added not merely one 
lamb as before, but ten sacrificial animals for a burnt- 
offering denoting consecration ; a kid of the goats 
for a sin-offering to make expiation for that sense of 
unworthiness which the reception of God's free gifts 
inspires, and with a fresh duplication of the former 
number two lambs as a peace-offering to represent 
and seal communion with God. 

But with all the emphasis thus thrown upon this 
occasion, the feast was limited to a single day ; this 
abbreviation of the full festal period showing that the 
climax was not yet reached. This came with the 
third and last member of the series at the close of the 
ingathering of fruits from the oliveyards and the 
vineyards, when all the products of the year had been 
stored, and the toil of the husbandman had received 
its full reward, in the feast of Tabernacles, which was 
not only prolonged to the complete festal term of 
seven days, but had an added day beyond it, and in 
which sacrifices were offered with a profusion un- 
known at any other festival. The feast of Weeks is 
the second stage in this ascending scale, linked both 
to the preceding ceremonial and to the succeeding 
feast, an appropriate termination to the harvest of 
grain, but when the husbandman was still looking 
forward to the ingathering of fruits. 

The true position thus awarded by Hupfeld to 
this feast was unfortunately somewhat marred by his 
change of the calendar, which spoiled the symmetry 
of the festal period of the year, and disturbed the 
proper relation of the two great festivals. His idea 
that the feast of Unleavened Bread signified and sealed 



256 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



the priestly consecration of the people, led him to 
throw the chief emphasis upon it as marking the cli- 
max of the year, and consequently to invert the order 
of the feasts by adopting the reckoning of the civil 
instead of the ecclesiastical year, in which the seventh 
month became the first, and the first month the 
seventh. Tabernacles thus came to stand in his 
scheme at the beginning of the year, which was then 
opened by the feast of Trumpets on the first day of 
the same month as the formal proclamation of the 
new year. Passover then stood at the central or 
climactic point, in which the people reached their 
highest dignity in their elevation to sacerdotal com- 
munion with God, the Passover as a personal and do- 
mestic expiation, being likewise held to rank above 
the day of Atonement for the sins of the people e?i 
masse. 

But this is plainly an inversion of Hebrew concep- 
tions which Riehm 1 in reproducing Hupfeld's scheme 
has very properly corrected. The accumulation of 
festivals in the seventh month proclaims it to be the 
sacred culmination of the year, as the lengthened 
term of Tabernacles, and its multiplied sacrifices de- 
clare it to be the climactic festival, which it must in 
fact be upon Hupfeld's own showing of its relation 
to the sheaf of first-fruits and to the feast of Weeks. 

The critics claim that there has been a develop- 
ment in the feast of Weeks like that which they 
essay to show in the other two great feasts, viz., a 
tendency at least to change its character from an 
agricultural feast to a historical commemoration ; a 

1 11 Handworterbuch des Biblischen Alterthums." Art. Feste. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



257 



change in the time of holding it which at first varied 
with the season, but came ultimately to be attached 
to a determinate date ; a change in its ritual from 
voluntary gifts on individual account to public sacri- 
fices regulated by statute, and a change in place from 
the various local sanctuaries to the temple at the 
capital of the nation. 

The agricultural character and aim of this feast is 
undeniable ; this is sufficiently indicated by the names 
applied to it, the added descriptions of its design, the 
peculiar ceremonial appointed for it, and the time of 
its occurrence at the end of harvest, which was estima- 
ted by a definite period of time from its beginning. 
And no other character is attributed to it or in the 
remotest way suggested for it in the laws of the Pen- 
tateuch. The admonition coupled with it, Deut. 
16: 12, to remember that they were bondmen in the 
land of Egypt, does not suggest an additional rea- 
son for the institution of the feast, but is meant to 
enforce the kindly and generous use of the opportun- 
ity which it affords, to befriend the impoverished and 
dependent classes by the remembrance of their own 
late distressed condition. It is a motive which the 
legislator repeatedly employs, and has its value as an 
indication of the time when the laws were given. 
Such a reminder would be of great force in the 
mouth of Moses; it would have been absolutely 
ridiculous in the time of Josiah. But there is no 
suggestion in it that the occasion of the feast was in 
any way historical or connected with the exodus. 
The later Jews came indeed to associate it with the 
giving of the law, as the interval between it and the 
17 



258 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



Passover corresponded in a general way at least with 
the recorded time between Israel's leaving Egypt 
and encamping at the base of Sinai. That was sim- 
ply a deduction, however, made in post-biblical times, 
which is not alluded to even by Philo or Josephus, 
and to which there is no reference in Scripture, not 
even in the passages 2 Chron. 15 : 10, 12, John 5 : 1, 39, 
in which Vaihinger 1 professes to find it. It has no 
bearing, consequently, upon the question whether a 
development can be traced in the feast laws them- 
selves, so that they must be assigned to different 
ages. It may, therefore, be dismissed. 

The allegation that this was at first a movable 
feast lacks confirmation. The general and somewhat 
indefinite allusion to it, Ex. 23 : 16, merely establishes 
its relation to the harvest without in any way defin- 
ing the time of its occurrence. The repetition of this 
law, however, in Ex. 34 : 22, by applying to it the 
designation i feast of Weeks/ shows that it must have 
been observed a certain number of weeks after some 
given epoch from which it was calculated. What 
this was we learn more definitely from Deut. 16 : 9, 10. 
The feast is there placed at the end of seven weeks 
from the time of beginning to put the sickle to the 
corn. This, it is claimed, is making it dependent 
upon the state of the crop, not upon the phases of 
the moon or the day of the month. 

1 Herzog's " Encyklopadie," Art. Pfingstfest, p. 483. On the pre- 
ceding page he quotes Maimonides (" More Nebochim," 3, 43) as 
saying, 4 * The feast of Weeks was that day on which the law was 
given." To the question, When did God give the ten command- 
ments? the Wurtemburg catechism answers, "On the fiftieth day 
after the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt." 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



259 



But, I. While this would fix it approximately at the 
end of harvest, it is observable that it is not stated 
in that form, as would have been most natural, if it 
had been intended to conform precisely to the season. 
The statement is not that the feast will be held as 
soon as they have finished reaping their corn, but a 
given number of weeks from the time of beginning, 
irrespective of any variations in the actual duration 
of the harvest in different years. 

George 1 says on this point : " It would have been 
the most natural for it to have coincided with the 
end of work in harvest, and so have come earlier or 
later, according as this was accomplished more quickly 
or more slowly. We must, therefore, assume that 
there was originally an indefinite interval between the 
two feasts ; but all authorities fail us in this matter, 
and so nothing definite can be established in regard 
to it. So far as we can follow it, we always find a 
fixed time between the two feasts, the injunction be- 
ing that it should be celebrated seven full weeks after 
the Passover ; and from this it even derived its name, 
1 the feast of Weeks/ " What the critic assumes, 
merely upon the strength of his own hypothesis and 
confessedly without evidence, is of no weight as an 
argument. 

2. This mode of estimating the proper time for 
the celebration of the feast occurs in Deuteronomy, 
which steadfastly insists on all the . feasts being ob- 
served at the common sanctuary. That being the 
case, its time must have been determined by some 
rule which all could apply alike. As the time of be- 
1 " Die alteren Judischen Feste," p. 259. 



26o 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



ginning to reap the harvest differed considerably in 
different parts of the land, some definite point of be- 
ginning for the seven weeks must be here referred to, 
which all could ascertain, or pilgrims would come 
straggling in at different times, and there would be 
no festival held by all in common. 

3. We are consequently thrown upon the language 
of other laws to relieve if possible the vagueness of 
the expression when " thou beginnest to put the 
sickle to the corn." In Num. 28 : 26 it is also vaguely 
stated as ' in your weeks '; i. e. y in your feast of Weeks, 
implying some determinate mode of reckoning them, 
which was well known, and which it was not thought 
necessary here to repeat. The missing information 
is supplied, Lev. 23:15, that the seven weeks were 
to be reckoned from the day of bringing the sheaf of 
the wave-offering, which was upon a definite day of 
the Passover feast, " declared in the law to be on the 
morrow after the Sabbath." There is scarcely any 
point in the ritual that has been more disputed than 
the meaning of this expression. 

George 1 contends that the whole passage respect- 
ing the sheaf of first-fruits and the feast of Weeks, 
vs. 9-22, is a fragment derived from some other 
source and inserted by the author of Lev. 23, be- 
cause it suited his purpose. It is, he says, quite 
distinct in character from the rest of the chapter, and 
does not deal in the same phrases and expressions or 
ideas. It describes in minute detail the sacrifices to 
be offered, while the rest of the chapter is occupied 
with feasts and feast days and the mode of their ob- 

1 " Die alteren Jiidischen Feste," pp. 124 ff. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



26l 



servance, specifying fixed dates in each case which 
are not given in this passage ; moreover its closing 
verse relates to the care of the poor, which has noth- 
ing to do with the feasts. On these grounds he con- 
cludes that it had originally stood in quite a different 
connection ; and that consequently it is out of all 
relation to the preceding part of the chapter and can 
not properly be explained by it, but must be inter- 
preted by itself. He further argues that the word 
i Sabbath ' here employed can from its usage mean 
nothing but the weekly Sabbath ; that counting 
seven Sabbaths can not be equivalent to seven weeks 
unless these be weeks ending in and limited by Sab- 
baths ; and especially the phrase " the morrow after 
the seventh Sabbath," ver. 16, compels to the con- 
clusion that 1 Sabbath ' is here used in its strict and 
only authorized sense. 

He hence concludes that the Sabbath here spoken 
of is an ordinary weekly Sabbath, immediately pre- 
ceding the harvest, which he thinks would naturally 
begin with the week. On this first day of harvest, 
then, which is likewise the first day of the week, and 
had nothing to do with the Passover, but is simply 
determined by the time when " ye shall reap the har- 
vest," ver. 10, the sheaf of first-fruits was presented. 
From this seven Sabbaths more were to be numbered, 
and on the next day, which would again be the first 
day of the week, Pentecost was to be celebrated. It 
is obvious to remark that upon this showing no fixed 
date is assigned to Pentecost here 3 or anywhere else 

1 Unless it is claimed that the author of Lev. 23 intended that ( the 
Sabbath ' should in the connection in which he placed it find its ex- 



262 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



in the Pentateuch ; and there is no development what- 
ever in this respect in the Mosaic laws. The definite 
determination of the date, as we find it subsequently 
in Josephus and in the New Testament, arose from 
a misinterpretation of the law, and of course can not 
be cited to prove that the laws themselves represent 
the feasts at different stages of their growth and 
hence are to be attributed to distinct periods. 

The passage, which George in common with Hup- 
feld and Wellhausen regards as a fragment inserted 
in this chapter from another quarter, is nevertheless 
a constituent part of it. For, 

1. If this paragraph, vs. 9-22, were excluded from 
the chapter, it would give no account of the feast of 
Weeks whatever, which necessarily belongs in a com- 
plete conspectus of the feasts and is included in every 
other feast law. 

2. The minute account given of the special services 
of this day and of the presentation of the sheaf at the 
beginning of harvest, which is urged as a reason for 
its belonging elsewhere, is, on the contrary, an indica- 
tion of the consistent plan pursued by the writer. 
He had given full details of the mode of observing 
the Passover in Ex. 12, 13, and of the day of Atone- 
ment in Lev. 16. These consequently can be passed 
over in a few general sentences. But he had said 
nothing whatever of the ritual of the harvest-feast, 
nor of the mode of celebrating the feast of Taber- 

planation in the Passover of the preceding paragraph ; in which 
case the proof to be furnished that vs. 9-22 originally belong to 
this chapter nevertheless annuls the supposed evidence of a change 
in the time of the feast. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



263 



nacles. Upon these two points, therefore, he dwells 
at large. And the fact that he does so, instead of 
creating the suspicion that these passages are bor- 
rowed from another source, strengthens the con- 
viction that there is but one and the same writer 
throughout. 

3. The striking resemblance in phraseology and 
form of thought between this passage and ch. 25, 
which is plainly a continuation of ch. 23, and is by 
the critics referred to the same author, shows that 
they must be by one writer, and consequently that 
the passage in question belongs properly in the con- 
text in which it is found. Both begin in the same 
identical terms, 23 : 9, 10, 25 : 1, 2, " And the Lord 
spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto the children 
of Israel and say unto them," etc. And then the 
remarkable correspondence of the harvest term of 
fifty days, 23 : 15, 16, with the jubilee term of fifty 
years, 25 : 8, numbering seven Sabbaths until the 
morrow after the Sabbath in one case and seven 
Sabbaths of years unto the following year in the 
other ; the one an acknowledgment of God's owner- 
ship of the harvest by presenting unto him first the 
sheaf and then the loaves of the first-fruits ; the other 
an acknowledgment of God's ownership of the land 
by surrendering to him the whole of its produce in 
the Sabbatical year and the land itself for redistribu- 
tion in the year of Jubilee. These must have sprung 
from the same mind and the same thought, and the 
very terms of expression are the same. All vouches 
for identity of authorship. 

4. Num., ch. 28, 29, is evidently based on Lev. 23 ; 



264 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



and Num. 28 : 26 plainly alludes to the contents of 
Lev. 23 : 15 ff. and would be unintelligible without it, 
thus freshly showing that it is in its proper place. 

5. Lev. 23 : 22, which is specially objected to, is 
but a repetition of 19 : 9, 10, which is here introduced 
again by a very natural association. 

This passage can not, therefore, with George be 
torn from its proper connection. The phrase which 
we are considering, " on the morrow after the Sab- 
bath," must find its explanation in what had just be- 
fore been said in relation to the Passover. Hitzig 1 
proposes to explain it thus in his own peculiar way. 
He claims that according to Hebrew reckoning the 
first day of the year was not only the first day of the 
first month, but the first day of the week likewise, so 
that the seventh day of the first month was always 
a Sabbath. Accordingly Ezekiel 45 : 20 appoints a 
special sacrificial service for that day. The four- 
teenth day, on which the Passover was slain, would 
likewise be a Sabbath. And as the fifteenth or first 
day of Unleavened Bread was required to be hallowed 
by abstinence from labor and by a holy convocation, 
two Sabbaths here came together, a weekly Sabbath 
and a festive Sabbath, and this, in his opinion, was 
the reason why the paschal lamb was to be slain u be- 
tween the evenings," in that doubtful interval which 
in strictness belonged to neither of these holy days, 
but lay between them. Deuteronomy, however, 
which does not attach the feasts to particular days 
of the month or week, drops this peculiar expression 
and directs the lamb to be slain " at even, at the go- 
1 " Ostern und Pfingsten/' 1837. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



265 



ing down of the sun." They were enjoined at the 
Passover feast to eat unleavened bread seven days ; 
the seventh was a holy convocation, and servile work 
was forbidden ; then on the " morrow after the Sab- 
bath " they might eat bread, Lev. 23 : 14, i. e. y ordi- 
nary or leavened bread. This seventh day of the 
feast, which would be the twenty-first of the month, 
and the Sabbath referred to are, therefore, identical. 
From this the reckoning is made to Pentecost, which 
as the day after the seventh Sabbath, would invari- 
ably be the first day of the week. Josephus (Antiq. 
xiii., 8, 4) mentions that in the Parthian war Pentecost 
occurred the day after the Sabbath, and this account- 
ed for a two days' rest of the army. How, he asks, 
could Josephus know this to be a fact or express him- 
self about it as he does, unless Pentecost always oc- 
curred on the day after the Jewish Sabbath? On 
this basis he further undertakes to explain the puz- 
zling expression in Luke 6 : 1, " the second-first Sab- 
bath/' by which he understands the first day of 
Unleavened Bread. By his hypothesis it always came 
after a weekly Sabbath, and thus was itself a second 
Sabbath ; while at the same time in relation to the 
seventh day of the feast, which was also a Sabbath, 
it was the first. It was second in one respect, and first 
in another, and thus a second-first Sabbath. 

Hitzig makes the sheaf of first-fruits to be presented 
on the twenty-second of the month, which is entirely 
outside of the limits of the sacred festival. And with 
him Kayser 1 agrees. Knobel and Kurtz 2 seek to 

1 "Das Vorexilische Buch," p. 74. 

2 " Alttestamentliche Opfercultus," p. 308 f. 



266 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



correct this, while accepting the hypothesis in other 
respects, by placing it a week earlier. They suppose 
the Sabbath intended to be the fourteenth of the 
month, and that the sheaf was presented on the 
fifteenth or the first day of Unleavened Bread. 

This hypothesis, however modified, is wrecked by 
its unsupported and untenable assumption that the 
first day of the year was invariably the first day of 
the week. This would always leave a broken week 
at the end of the year and be inconsistent with the 
fourth commandment. It is inconsistent also with 
Ex. 12 : 1 6, Lev. 23 : 8 ; for although the seventh day 
of Unleavened Bread by this hypothesis was a weekly 
Sabbath only servile work was forbidden and certain 
kinds of work were allowed. 

According to the Baithusians 1 or Karaites the Sab- 
bath in question is " the Sabbath of the creation," or 
the regular weekly Sabbath, occurring during the 
feast, on whichever day of Unleavened Bread it may 
fall ; and to this Wellhausen 2 and Dillmann give 
their adhesion as most consistent with the language 
employed. But it is difficult to see why the presen- 
tation of the sheaf should be regulated by the weekly 
Sabbath, with which it has no obvious connection, 
while there would be a natural propriety in having 
the ceremony take place at one particular period in 
the festival. It is also liable to the objection that 
whenever the Sabbath occurred on the last day of 
Unleavened Bread the sheaf of first-fruits would not 
be presented until after the feast had ended. 

1 Lightfoot, 4 ' Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations " on Luke 
6 : 1 and Acts 2 : r. 

2 "Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Theologie," XXII., p. 433. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



267 



The traditional interpretation, which is certainly 
as old as the Septuagint, and is besides vouched for 
by Josephus and Philo and the usage of the second 
temple, understands by the 1 Sabbath ' the first day 
of Unleavened Bread, which was observed as a festal 
Sabbath ; according to this the sheaf was presented 
on the second day of the feast. And with this agrees 
Josh. 5 : II, which informs us that the children of 
Israel after partaking of the Passover at Gilgal " did 
eat of the produce of the land on the morrow after 
the Passover, unleavened bread and parched corn on 
the self-same day." The reference to the Passover- 
law here is plain ; and it is evident that the people 
governed themselves by its directions. They kept 
the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at 
even, precisely as the law required, Lev. 23 : 5. They 
had previously circumcised all those who had not 
received this rite in the wilderness, in obedience to 
the statute, Ex. 12 : 48, that " no uncircumcised per- 
son shall eat thereof." The bread which they ate 
was unleavened agreeably to the command, Lev. 23 : 6. 
It was then " the time of harvest," Josh. 3:15, but 
they had refrained from eating of the productions of 
the country until " the morrow after the Passover," 
when they freely partook of them " on the self-same 
day." Clearly this is their interpretation of the law, 
Lev. 23 : 14, which forbade their eating " bread or 
parched corn or green ears until the self-same day " 
that they brought their offering of the sheaf " on the 
morrow after the Sabbath." " The morrow after the 
Sabbath" in the law is thus defined by the practice 
of the generation that entered Canaan under Joshua 
to mean " the morrow after the Passover." 



268 THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



But, say Kurtz and Knobel, they ate the Passover 
on the fourteenth day at even ; the morrow after the 
Passover must, as in Num. 33 : 3, where the identical 
expression is employed, have been the fifteenth, or 
the first day of Unleavened Bread, which according 
to tradition is the Sabbath referred to in the law and 
not the morrow after the Sabbath, which was the 
following day, the sixteenth of the month. This 
difficulty appears to have embarrassed the translators 
of the Authorized Version, 1 who lest the children of 
Israel might here seem to have eaten of the new har- 
vest a day sooner than the law allowed, have rendered 
"the old corn of the land," where the original has 
simply "produce," with evident allusion to the crop 
then just reaped. 

But all the trouble arises from the ambiguity of the 
phrase. "Beyond Jordan" may denote either side of 
the river according as it is " beyond Jordan eastward," 
Josh. 1 : 15, or "beyond Jordan westward," 5 : 1. 
A person who shortly after midnight of Tuesday 
should speak of " to-morrow " might mean by it 
Wednesday, inasmuch as daylight had not yet 
broken, or he might mean Thursday, as by civil 
reckoning Wednesday had already begun. In certain 
portions of New England it was formerly the usage 
to regard the Sabbath as beginning at sunset of Sat- 
urday. All secular occupations and amusements 
terminated then, the holy day of rest continuing until 
the following sunset, which ushered in Monday and 
with it the transition to secular time. It is easy to 

1 The British Revisers have likewise retained 1 old corn ' in the 
text, for which the appendix substitutes 'produce.' 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



269 



perceive the ambiguity which might exist in the use 
of the word 1 to-morrow ' under these circumstances. 
In the shades of evening after the Sabbath had be- 
gun, it might mean the day succeeding the Sabbath, 
i. e.j Monday, or the day succeeding the night upon 
which they had just entered, L e. } Sunday. We are 
sensible of precisely the same ambiguity in the phrase 
"next week 99 uttered on Sunday morning; the secu- 
lar portion of the week not having yet begun, the 
reference may be to the days which immediately fol- 
low ; or as in strict reckoning the new week has com- 
menced already, the period intended may be seven 
days later. So the Passover was celebrated on the 
evening of the fourteenth ; but that evening was the 
beginning of another day which continued until the fol- 
lowing evening, and ' the morrow after the Passover ' 
may mean the fifteenth, as it does in Num. 33 : 3 ; 
but it may with equal propriety denote the sixteenth 
of the month, as it does in Josh. 5 : II, which is in 
perfect consistency with the law as traditionally ex- 
plained, and requires no forced interpretation or fan- 
ciful and unfounded hypothesis. 

But can the first day of Unleavened Bread merely 
from the fact that all servile work is forbidden and a 
holy convocation required, be called a " Sabbath " as 
the term is here used without qualification ? We are 
told that a festal day of rest might be called a Sab- 
bathon or a Sabbath Sabbathon, but not simply a Sab- 
bath. But in this very chapter, Lev. 23 : 32, we read 
of the day of Atonement : " It shall be unto you a 
Sabbath Sabbathon; .... from even unto even shall 
ye celebrate your Sabbath. " The Sabbatical year is 



270 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



called a Sabbat lion, Lev. 25 : 5, a Sabbath Sabbathon, 
25 : 4, and repeatedly a Sabbath, 25 i 2, 4, 6, 8, 26 : 
34, 35, 43. The weekly Sabbath is called Sabbathon 
Sabbath, Ex. 16 : 23, and Sabbath Sabbathon, Ex. 
32:15, 35:2, Lev. 23:3, as well as Sabbath. The 
predominant application of Sabbathon to festival days 
of rest, Lev. 16: 31, 23: 24, 39, is no bar, therefore, 
to giving them the denomination of Sabbath, with 
which it would seem to be convertible. 

But as both the first and seventh days of Unleaven- 
ed Bread were observed as Sabbaths, Kliefoth 1 con- 
tends that the latter, ver. 8, must be meant in Lev. 
23 : 11, rather than the former, ver. 7, which is more 
remote. And Hupfeld'adds that on the traditional 
interpretation the harvest would fall within the term 
of the feast and the permission to eat of the new 
grain would conflict with the prohibition of leaven. 
But the superior prominence of the first day on which 
the whole festival was founded, makes it emphatically 
the Sabbath. The most obvious explanation of the 
permission to return home on the day after the Pass- 
over is the ripened harvest. Permitted absence from 
the ceremonial of the sheaf, which Kurtz thinks im- 
possible, is as easily explicable as from the holy con- 
vocation ; while the postponement of the ceremony 
till after the end of the feast would be incongruous. 
The prohibition to eat bread of the new harvest be- 
fore the feast, which might be possible in some years, 
certainly gives no sanction to the use of leaven after 
the feast had begun, comp. Josh. 5:11. 

1 "Die urspriingliche Gottesdienstordnung," I., p. 146. 

2 " De primitiva et vera festorum ratione," Part 2, p. 4. 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



That the Hebrew word 1 Sabbath ' may be used 
in the sense of 'week' may be argued apart from 
this passage, from its having this meaning in Chaldee, 
Syriac, and the Greek of the New Testament, Luke 
1 8 : 12. 1 I fast twice in the week ' (diS rod eafifiarov), 
and Mat. 28 : 1, where both meanings occur together 
in the same verse, " In the end of the Sabbath as it 
began to dawn toward the first day of the week." 1 
And it may be further illustrated by the word tnn 
which, though primarily denoting ' new moon/ is 
used not only of the interval from one new moon 
to another, but of a month at whatever time it may 
begin. Counting seven Sabbaths is therefore equiva- 
lent to counting seven weeks ; and the morrow after 
the seventh Sabbath is the same as the next day after 
the seventh week. 

Lightfoot 2 explains the Sevrepo7rpGorcp of Luke 6 : 1 
as not 'the second Sabbath after the first,' but ' the 
first Sabbath after the second,' u e., the first of the 
seven Sabbaths following the second day of Unleav- 
ened Bread, from which the fifty days to Pentecost 
were counted. 

The % morrow after the Sabbath 1 on which the sheaf 
was waved before the LORD, Lev. 23 : 11, only defines 
more precisely what is stated in general terms in 
Deut. 16 : 9, as beginning to put the sickle to the corn. 
The very same time is intended in either case ; no 
change had occurred in the period of the festival. 

And no change took place in its duration. Men- 
tion is indeed made in later times in the period of 

2 " Exercitations " on Mat. 12 : 1. 



272 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



the dispersion that Jews remote from Palestine ob- 
served two days instead of one, from their uncertainty 
which was the real day, the calendar being regulated 
by the appearance of the new moon at Jerusalem. 
This can not be adduced, therefore, in proof of a tend- 
ency to prolong festivals; besides it is foreign to the 
subject before us, as it belongs wholly to post-biblical 
times. 

Nor can any change be shown to have taken place 
in the ritual. Ex. 23 : 19 and 34: 26 connect with it 
the oblation of first-fruits. Deut. 16: 10 f. directs the 
bringing of a free-will offering to the LORD accom- 
panied by a joyful feast. Lev. 23:i6ff. prescribes 
the wave-offering of the two loaves with accompany- 
ing sacrifices, — not, as George interprets it, two loaves 
from every house, which, it has been well said, the 
priests would never have been able to consume, but 
two loaves such as were in ordinary use in their houses 
in the name of the whole people. Num. 28 : 26 f. or- 
dains the proper festal offerings. But as has been 
seen already in the case of the Passover, these do not 
exclude, but supplement each other. There was no 
transition from private oblations in an earlier period 
to public sacrifices at a later time ; but the day was 
characterized by both from the beginning. The one 
class is definitely prescribed as a matter of course, 
while the other is left to the pleasure of the offerer. 
But each held its appropriate place, and neither was 
permitted to override the other. 

The discrepancy which has been alleged between 
the sacrifices enjoined upon this day in Lev. 23 and 
Num. 28 does not exist ; for they are quite distinct 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



273 



in design and character, and both were offered. The 
one is a simple accompaniment of the loaves, and for 
that reason only is stated in Lev. 23, which does not 
in any case name the proper festal offerings. These 
latter are given in Num. 28, which prescribes the offer- 
ing for this feast-day as such ; and it is precisely iden- 
tical with that which is enjoined for each day of Un- 
leavened Bread. 

Neither was there a transfer of this feast from local 
sanctuaries to one central place of worship. The same 
arguments are available here as in the case of the Pass- 
over. The very first reference to this feast implies its 
observance at one locality, and a centralized worship 
generally. Ex. 23 and 34 not only enjoin three pil- 
grimages in the year, in which all the males shall 
appear before the LORD God, but direct with spe- 
cific reference to this feast: "The first of the first- 
fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of 
the LORD thy God." 

The appeal to history to sustain the critics' hypoth- 
esis is here particularly unsuccessful, for with the ex- 
ception of Chronicles, which is not allowed to be an 
authority, except for the time when it was written, 
there is no mention of this feast in the entire Old 
Testament apart from the Pentateuch. We read in 
2 Chron. 8: 12, 13, of Solomon's offering burnt-offer- 
ings unto the Lord, on the altar of the Lord which 
he had built, besides other occasions, " three times in 
the year, in the feast of Unleavened Bread, and in 
the feast of Weeks and in the feast of Tabernacles." 
This is confirmed by the parallel passage in 1 Kin. 
9 : 25, " Three times in a year did Solomon offer burnt- 
18 



274 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



offerings and peace-offerings upon the altar which he 
built unto the Lord." Though the occasions of these 
offerings are not more particularly specified, their re- 
currence thrice in the year naturally suggests the 
three great festivals. To admit this, however, would 
be to confess that they were all celebrated at Jeru- 
salem in the time of Solomon, which is contrary to 
the critical hypothesis. Even Ezekiel makes no allu- 
sion to the feast of Weeks, when prescribing a new 
ritual, ordaining sacrifices, and giving specific direc- 
tions concerning the feasts of Passover and Taber- 
nacles. This seemed so strange and unaccountable 
that the text has been altered to the complete de- 
struction of the sense in order to introduce it. " The 
Passover, a feast of seven days," Ezek. 45 :2i, has 
by the insertion of a letter been made to read " the 
Passover, a feast of weeks of days"; and the attempt 
has been made to justify this reading on the assump- 
tion that the expression is meant to embrace both 
feasts as well as the interval that lay between them. 
The true correction is supplied by a comparison of 
Num. 28 : 16, 17, on which the verse in Ezekiel is 
manifestly based. Wellhausen admits without hesi- 
tation that the feast of Weeks can not be here re- 
ferred to. 

The fact, then, is that while the feast of Weeks is 
one of the three great annual festivals ordained in 
what the critics declare to be the very earliest codes, 
Ex. 23 and 34, it is nowhere mentioned in the history 
before the exile, nor by any prophet or psalmist, not- 
withstanding their allusions to the joy of harvest and 
the fruits of the earth and the first-fruits, which would 



THE FEAST OF WEEKS, 



275 



have made such a mention natural. It is besides 
completely ignored by Ezekiel in his arrangements 
for the worship and the sanctuary. There is not even 
the slightest allusion to it in the writings after the 
exile, and no record of its observance by Ezra or 
the returned captives. The first and only reference 
to it , is found in Chronicles, which the critics tell us 
could not have been written before the time of Alex- 
ander the Great. 1 The passage in Chronicles affirms 
its observance in Solomon's days ; but the only con- 
clusion that in the opinion of the critics is at all reli- 
able is that this feast was observed at the time when 
this book was written. We may here see in a con- 
spicuous instance the value of the argument from 
silence, which plays so important a part in modern 
critical reasoning. What becomes of the confident 
assertion that sin-offerings and trespass-offerings had 
no existence before the time of Ezekiel, who first 
proposed them, 40 : 39,* etc., and that the Pentateuchal 
laws, in which they are found, are thus shown to be 
post-exilic ? Or that the annual day of Atonement was 
not even incorporated in the law so early as the days 
of Ezra ? The feast of Weeks wrests their main 
weapon palpably from their hands. 

And the law of development, on which they so 
strenuously insist, has, as we have seen, no application 
to it. Even George is compelled to acknowledge, 

1 Wellhausen's edition of Bleek's " Einleitung in das Alte Testa- 
ment," p. 288. 

2 This is leaving out of the account or explaining away 2 Kin. 12 : 
16 ; 2 Chron. 29 : 21-24 ; Ps. 40 : 6 ; Hos. 4:8; Isa. 53 : 10. 



276 THE FEAST OF WEEKS. 



"Of the Jewish feasts this is the one that has re- 
mained truest to its original mode of celebration, and 
has in the course of time experienced only a very 
trifling development." It would have been more ac- 
curate to say no development at all. 



VIII. 

THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



VIII. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 

THE last of the three great feasts, which closed 
the sacred cycle and terminated the festive por- 
tion of the year is, in Ex. 23 : 16, 34: 22, denominated 
the feast of Ingathering, and elsewhere the feast of 
Tabernacles. This, as its name denoted, had special, 
though not exclusive relation to the ingathering of 
fruits from oliveyards and vineyards, the oil and the 
wine. Coming after the latest products of the year, 
it fitly commemorated God's goodness in the whole, 
who had plentifully rewarded all the labors of the 
husbandman, who, Ps. 104: 14, 15, had brought forth 
food out of the earth, wine that maketh glad the 
heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and 
bread which strengtheneth man's heart. And hence, 
although the feast of Weeks was specially appointed 
to express the grateful joy of harvest, both the har- 
vest and the vintage are joined together as giving 
occasion for the feast that followed. Deut. 16: 13^ 
u Thou shalt observe the feast of Tabernacles after that 
thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine." Thus 
their occasions of exuberant joy and worldly gain and 
patriotic fervor were their sacred times, when they 
gathered at the sanctuary of God and poured out 
their thankful praise before him. Their secular life 

(279) 



280 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



became thus a consecrated life ; their secular joy a joy 
before the LORD. There was no severance between 
their daily occupation and their religious service. 
Both were firmly entwined together, and Jehovah w T as 
supreme and supremely honored in both. 

Tabernacles, as it was the concluding, was likewise, 
as was stated in a preceding lecture, the culminating 
festival of the entire series. It occurred at the crown 
and apex of the year, in the seventh, which as such 
was the sabbatical or sacred month with its accumu- 
lation of festivals ; and it was itself the climax of all 
that preceded. At this season, when grateful glad- 
ness reached its highest pitch in the experience of 
God's lavish bounty, came the most joyful festival of 
all, to which the sheaf of first-fruits and the feast of 
Weeks stood in the relation of preliminary antece- 
dents, and in which Passover with its historical remi- 
niscences was also, as it were, absorbed, since grati- 
tude for the products of the land involved gratitude 
to him who had delivered them or their fathers from 
Egyptian bondage, and given them the land, Deut. 
26 : 5-10. And it followed close upon the annual day 
of Atonement, when the sins and transgressions of the 
preceding year were all by a peculiar and striking 
ceremony expiated in the most solemn and impressive 
manner, and sent away into the desert, to a land not 
inhabited, never to be remembered or charged against 
them again. The people thus purged from their old 
sins could engage in this feast with the glad sense of 
pardon, reconciliation and communion with God, as 
well as the experience of his favor shown in the rich 
bounty of the year. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 28 1 



It was hence appropriately marked by the most 
elaborate and profuse sacrificial ritual of all the festi- 
vals. And while the feast of Weeks lasted but a sin- 
gle day, and while at the Passover pilgrims were per- 
mitted to return home after partaking of the paschal 
meal with which it began, at Tabernacles they re- 
mained not only through the full term of seven days, 
but an eighth day was added at the end, which in 
later times at least was reckoned ' the great day of 
the feast/ John 7: 37. The people lifted to this rap- 
turous and sacred height dispersed to their homes, 
abiding in the happy consciousness that they were 
the Israel of the LORD, blessed with his favor and 
happy in his service, until with the new year a fresh 
series of sacred festivals began, culminating as before, 
2 Chron. 7 : 10. 

As Tabernacles thus outranked all the other feasts, 
it is not surprising that it is oftenest mentioned in the 
history. Hupfeld appeals to Lev. 23 : 39, 41, 1 Kin. 
8 : 2, 65, 12 : 32, Ezek. 45 : 25, Neh. 8 : 14, as showing 
that it is spoken of as 1 the feast ' by way of eminence- 
He even maintains that it was the one sole feast in the 
strict and proper sense ; that the expiatory rites of 
the Passover were severe and stern, and the unleavened 
bread was unpalatable and forbidding, so that it 
could not fitly be called a feast ; for this was of a 
joyous nature, as is shown by the combination, " eat- 
ing and drinking and feasting," 1 Sam. 30: 16. And 
the feast of Weeks is in Lev. 23 : 16, Num. 28 : 26, not 
called a feast at all, but only described as the time of 
offering a new meat-offering unto the LORD. He 
thence concludes that the latter is not entitled to 



282 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



rank as a separate feast, but only as a preliminary an- 
tecedent to the proper feast, that of Tabernacles. To 
this it is a sufficient reply that Ex. 23 and 34, and 
Deut. 16 expressly name three feasts; that if his view 
of the Passover and Unleavened Bread does not con- 
sist with its being a feast, this merely proves that 
view to be erroneous ; the omission of the word 
* feast ' in connection with the second festival in Le- 
viticus and Numbers is to be explained in the same 
way as the neglect of Num. 28 : 26 to define the period 
of its occurrence ; it is assumed as known, having been 
spoken of sufficiently elsewhere. And the passages 
in which Tabernacles is referred to as ' the feast,' im- 
ply no exclusiveness or superiority, but simply denote 
it as the feast held at the time mentioned in the con- 
nection, or the feast which had before been spoken of. 

The critics tell us that Tabernacles has passed 
through a like development to that which they claim 
for the Passover. Their arguments are similar to 
those which they employ in the case of the other 
feasts and involve the same fallacies. They convert 
the different aspects of the festival presented in dif- 
ferent laws into successive stages belonging to dis- 
tinct periods. They sunder laws which are entirely 
harmonious, but, as each has its own specific design, 
are needed to complete each other, and insist upon 
treating them as separate and independent statutes, 
void of all mutual relation. We first find in the 
Book of the Covenant, Ex. 23, and its subsequent re- 
production, Ex. 34, the feasts briefly characterized 
and attendance upon them enjoined. Then in Lev. 
23 the days of rest and the holy convocations belong- 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 283 



ing to each are enumerated, and some peculiarities 
in the observance of the feasts that are not elsewhere 
mentioned. Num. 28, 29 detail the public sacrifices 
required at each. In Deut. 16 the great legislator, 
with an urgency and repetition natural in his farewell 
address to the people, enjoins it upon them to observe 
the feasts sacredly at the place that the LORD should 
choose, bearing their grateful offerings, and bringing 
their needy neighbors to share their festivities. Al- 
though these cohere perfectly together, the critics 
insist upon rending them apart, and making each dis- 
severed portion stand for the whole ; whereupon they 
urge that these are not identical, which was obvious 
enough from the first. They are of course distinct 
injunctions, but they all belong together and are 
needed to make up any proper view of the feast as 
observed at any one time. 

And their treatment of the history is as arbitrary 
and unwarranted as their treatment of the statutes. 
It consists throughout in substituting their own im- 
aginations for facts. Open and wilful violations of 
law are paraded as examples of what was reckoned 
lawful. Exceptional conduct under anomalous con- 
ditions is set forth as the normal course of procedure. 
And deviations are multiplied and exaggerated to an 
extent that has no existence but in the disordered 
fancy of the critic. Historical testimonies are credited 
or set aside at pleasure, and well-attested documents 
are freely manipulated. So with facts manufactured 
and authorities doctored to suit themselves they 
claim to have made out their point, when the whole 
thing is mere fancy from beginning to end. 



284 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



Thus, in the first place, it is claimed that the char- 
acter and design of the feast underwent serious 
changes. George 1 tells us that the vintage feast was 
adopted by Israel from the Canaanites, and was at 
first purely a sensuous feast with music and dancing, 
while the spirits were exhilarated with new wine. To 
this a religious element was soon added. As the 
Canaanites trode the grapes and went into the house 
of their god and did eat and drink, Judg. 9: 27, so 
doubtless did the Israelites. The first of their oil 
and their new wine was brought to God, and served 
to enliven a joyful meal, of which the whole house- 
hold partook along with the Levite, the stranger, the 
fatherless and the widow, Deut. 14 : 23 ; 16 : 14. Sub- 
sequently with the removal of its observance to a 
central sanctuary, it lost its original character, the 
first-fruits of oil and of wine became a perquisite of the 
priests, the joyful meals were abandoned and from a 
proper vintage feast it became one of general thanks- 
giving. Finally, it was changed still further by being 
dissociated from its agricultural meaning, and assum- 
ing a historical signification ; the huts, which the 
whole population occupied during the vintage season, 
being separated from their original occasion, were 
supposed to commemorate the march through the 
wilderness, Lev. 23 : 43. 

It is plain that all this is spun out of the critic's 
own brain. The vintage feasts of the ancient world 
generally were of a religious character ; and that one 
ever existed in Israel destitute of any religious ele- 
ment is pure a priori theory. To assume that it was 

1 " Die alteren Jiidischen Feste," p. 276 f. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, 285 



borrowed by Israel from the Canaanites, is to assume 
without evidence and in the face of all the proof to 
the contrary, that Moses gave Israel no laws what- 
ever relating to religious observances. For in both 
the most ancient codes, as the critics regard them, 
which are attributed to him and expressly declared 
to have been written by him, attendance upon the 
three annual feasts is almost the sole religious duty 
enjoined. Parallels are so numerous in the ancient 
world that sacrifices might as well be said to have 
been borrowed from the Canaanites as the feasts. 
And upon this ground alone the great body even of 
those critics who renounce the historical authority 
of the Pentateuch, and refuse to attribute the origin 
of the festal system to Moses, are disposed, as was 
shown at length in the second lecture, to consider 
these feasts pre-Mosaic. The assertion that the He- 
brews first learned the cultivation of the soil after 
their occupancy of Canaan can not be proved. And 
if it could, it would not follow that Moses could not 
have framed laws adapted to the agricultural life 
which they were about to assume. 

That Tabernacles ceased to be associated with the 
ingathering and came ultimately to have a historical 
meaning attached to it, is also a total misrepresenta- 
tion. The Passover is adduced to illustrate a tend- 
ency in feasts which were originally agricultural to 
take on a historical character. But it has before 
been shown that the Passover was a commemorative 
festival from the beginning. And that the law of 
Tabernacles given while Israel was still camping in 
the desert should link the booths of the vintage in a 



286 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



subordinate way with the march through the wilder- 
ness to the goodly land . of Canaan, involves no such 
gross misunderstanding as the critics affirm. So that 
we may dismiss without further remark the three 
counts in Hupfeld's indictment, that the children of 
Israel in the wilderness dwelt not in booths, but in 
tents ; that carrying branches with leaves and fruit 
from the noblest trees stands in no relation to it ; and 
that the most joyful feast of the year can not com- 
memorate the penalty of living in the inhospitable 
desert. The law is not expounding the origin of the 
booths or their primary signification, but attaching to 
them an additional and not very remote association. 

Again, the attempt is made to show that there 
were changes in the time of the celebration of this 
feast. It is alleged that, in the first instance, it varied 
with the time of the vintage ; and George 1 conjectures 
that its duration was fixed at seven days, because 
of the imaginary habit of beginning to gather the 
fruits on the first day of the week and occupying a 
full week in the work. So, as he says, the seventh 
day should be a Sabbath as in the Passover; only 
there is no record of the fact. Dillmann 2 is not 
certain whether it originally lasted seven days ; but 
this must early have become the custom, as appears 
from the feast in the time of Solomon, I Kin. 8 : 65. 
And he thinks it possible that in the first period of 
the settlement, in the general splitting up of the peo- 
ple, individual places and towns may have taken their 
own course as to the time of observing this feast. 

1 Ubi supra, p. 278. 

2 Ki Die Biicher Exodus und Leviticus," p. 582. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



287 



But as pilgrimages to a common sanctuary carne into 
vogue, it was fixed at the period of the full moon. 
So that the only variation in different districts would 
be between the seventh and eighth months. But in 
Solomon's time, at least within the jurisdiction of 
the temple at Jerusalem, the decision was in favor of 
the seventh month, 1 Kin. 12 :32 k Further it is 
said, that this feast shared the general tendency to 
lengthen festivals ; a day was accordingly added to 
it, not as in Passover at the beginning, but at the 
end of the proper seven days. 

The feast of ingathering is said, Ex. 23 : 16, to be 
" in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in 
thy labors out of the field." George 1 claims that no 
such statement could have been made prior to the 
Babylonish exile, as the Hebrew year originally began 
in the spring. It implies the reckoning after the ex- 
ile, when the civil year had been introduced, begin- 
ning with the autumnal equinox ; and as the vintage 
in Palestine was then finished, this feast could be 
held before the close of the year. In Ex. 34 : 22, the 
form of expression is slightly altered ; " the feast of 
ingathering," not precisely "at the years end," as 
our translators have it, but "at the return of the 
year." This according to George most probably in- 
dicates a still later period, when the feast had been 
fixed after the equinox in the seventh month of the 
ecclesiastical year, and consequently after the new 
civil year had begun. Hupfeld 2 finds in the expres- 
sion " the end of the year " evidence of high an 

1 Ubi supra , p. 114. 

2 "De prim^itiva festorum ratione," p. 6. 



288 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



tiquity and a trace of pre-Mosaic reckoning, which in 
Ex. 34 is changed to the more indefinite phrase 
" return of the year," for the sake of conforming to 
the Mosaic calendar. Wellhausen 1 maintains that 
these expressions are substantially identical, and both 
point to the year beginning in autumn, which in his 
estimation was the customary reckoning before the 
exile. The fact is, as has been mentioned on a former 
occasion, that there are clear indications prior to the 
exile of both modes of estimating the year as be- 
ginning in the spring and as beginning in the fall. It 
is the agricultural year that is here spoken of, which 
ended after the produce had all been stored and be- 
gan with the ploughing and sowing for the new crop. 
This natural but somewhat indefinite style of reckon- 
ing did not correspond precisely with the calendar of 
the civil year, subsequently introduced, and hence 
the feast though occurring in Tisri is said to be " in 
the end of the year." In reference to this Dillmann 
truly observes, " It does not necessarily follow that 
the day was not fixed at the time of the author, but 
only that the general statement was sufficient for his 
purpose." " Such general statements were sufficient 
in law books of the laity; the more exact calculation 
of the times by the moon and lunar months was the 
affair of the priests." 

Dr. Dillmann reaches his conclusions as to a possi- 
ble variation in the length of this feast and the time 
of its occurrence by a careful and elaborate analysis 
of the laws, assigning each to its hypothetical writer, 
who is assumed to represent a distinct tradition, each 

1 li Geschichte," I., p. in. Prolegomena (Eng. Tr ), p. 108. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 289 



valid for its own age, and the concurrence of two or 
more upon any given point creating a higher or lower 
probability as to the facts of a still earlier date. The 
ingenuity, the learning and the conscientiousness 
with which this process is conducted is beyond all 
praise. Nevertheless, everything rests on a primary 
assumption, which, to say the least, has not yet been 
proved. It is that the Pentateuchal laws are not at 
all what they profess to be, what they are uniformly 
by all the writers of both the Old and New Testa- 
ments represented to be, what they have always been 
believed to be, what the internal evidence upon any 
fair treatment shows that they must be, and what 
therefore they have every reasonable claim to be re- 
garded as being, the genuine production of Moses. 

If we really have no trustworthy account of the 
institutions of Moses, if there be nothing but un- 
certain traditions through anonymous sources, which 
are often conflicting and which were not recorded till 
many centuries after the Mosaic age, Dr. Dillmann 
has perhaps done as well as it was possible to do 
with such unsatisfactory and intractable materials. 
But his procedure and his results depend for their 
justification on his original assumption. He puts 
into the critical crucible at the beginning precisely 
what he brings out at the end. These institutions 
thus dealt with are but the plaything of the critic's 
fancy. He makes them to be not what they are in 
the record, but what he pleases to regard them. Ex. 
23 and 34 speak in a general way of this feast, but 
do not mention its duration. Leviticus, Numbers 
and Deuteronomy assign to it a term of seven days. 
19 



290 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



Now if the feast laws of Exodus antedate the others 
by centuries, then we have no certain evidence of the 
length of this feast for that interval of time ; and Dr. 
Dillmann has some reason for expressing doubt on 
the subject. But until the contrary can be shown by 
irrefragable proof these laws must be accepted as 
holding to one another that intimate mutual relation 
which they claim, which has always been accorded to 
them, and which a fair examination of them abun- 
dantly justifies. If they be allowed to supplement 
and complete each other, all doubt vanishes at once, 
the whole intricacy of the subject is removed, and 
we are upon solid ground. 

And there are no known facts in the history to in- 
validate this conclusion. In the earliest references to 
this feast, which afford any intimation of its duration 
or of the time at which it was held, the agreement 
with the Mosaic law is perfect. In the reign of Solo- 
mon it lasted seven days, and was held in the seventh 
month, 1 Kin. 8 : 2, 65, 66, so that although the tem- 
ple was finished in the eighth month of the preceding 
year, 6 : 38, its dedication was delayed until the oc- 
currence of this autumnal festival, the other annual 
feasts being less suitable on account of the brief stay 
of the pilgrims at the sanctuary apart from other con- 
siderations. From 1 Kin. 12:32, it appears that it 
was observed on the fifteenth day of the month. 
There is nothing anywhere to imply that there had 
ever been any fluctuation in the time. How far the 
distractions incident to the imperfect conquest of the 
land or the incursions of foreign foes may have inter- 
fered with the regular observance of the law in early 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, 



periods we do not know, but this casts no doubt upon 
the existence of the statute, or of its appointment of 
a fixed time for the celebration of the feast. And it 
certainly does not justify the inference drawn from 
the arbitrary act of Jeroboam. The historian records 
that Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, 
on the fifteenth day of the month, even in the month 
which he had devised of his own heart. This innova- 
tion, as it is plainly declared to be, affords no ground 
even for the conjecture, much less for the assertion, 
which has no support from any other quarter, that 
the observance of the feast prior to this time, had 
varied in different sections of the country between 
the seventh and eighth months ; much less is it any 
warrant for the opinion that there was no recognized 
statute on the subject. 

Dr. Dillmann is likewise in doubt as to the antiqui- 
ty of the Atseretk, or the day added after the seven 
days of Tabernacles, as a solemn termination to this 
feast or to all the festivals of the year. It is spoken 
of in Lev. 23 : 36, 39, and in Num. 29 : 35, but not in 
Exodus or Deuteronomy. But this suggests no doubt 
of its Mosaic origin, or of its being from the first a 
constituent of the festal cycle. For this eighth day 
is plainly shown in both passages not to belong to the 
feast of Tabernacles in its strict and proper sense. 
Lev. 23 : 34 ff. reiterates no less than six times that 
the feast of Tabernacles, its special offerings and its 
dwelling in booths, lasted seven days ; but it adds 
that the eighth day was likewise to be kept holy and 
have offerings of its own. And Num. 29 : 12 ff. again 
declares that the feast lasts seven days, and proceeds 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



to specify the sacrifices to be offered during these 
seven days in a regular gradation day by day. An 
eighth day is added, ver. 35, without a copulative as 
uniformly before, and its sacrifices stand in no rela- 
tion to the preceding and do not continue the same 
graduated scale. Accordingly it was not to be ex- 
pected that the laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy, 
which limit themselves to the three annual feasts, 
should speak of this day any more than of the feast 
of Trumpets or the day of Atonement. If Deuteron- 
omy declares the feast of Tabernacles to be of seven 
days' duration, Leviticus and Numbers do the same 
with equal explicitness, so that no suspicion can arise 
of a change in the length of the feast in the interval. 

Dr. Dillmann correctly remarks that it can not be 
certainly inferred from 1 Kin. 8 : 66, that this eighth 
day was not observed in Solomon's time. It is there 
stated that after the celebration of the feast, he sent 
the people away on the eighth day. According to 
the parallel passage, 2 Chron. 7 : 9, they had a solemn 
assembly on the 8th day and were sent away on the 
day following. The apparent discrepancy is, however, 
very easily reconciled. At the close of the solemn 
services held on the eighth day, Solomon formally 
dismissed the people, who thereupon returned home 
the day after. This eighth day is particularly men- 
tioned in the observance of the feast by Ezra and 
Nehemiah, Neh. 8:18, and from the increasing con- 
course of pilgrims, it had risen to great consequence 
in the time of our Lord, John 7 : 37. 

It is further claimed that a development can be 
traced in the mode of observing the feast and in its 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



sacrificial ritual. Thus the critics affirm that Lev. 
23 : 39-43, which directs the people to take the boughs 
of goodly trees and to dwell in booths, is plainly a 
subsequent addition to the chapter, which came to a 
formal close vs. 37, 38, and according to Neh. 8:17 
this had not been observed prior to the time of Ne- 
hemiah. There is not a little divergence of critical 
opinion about the proper treatment of this chapter of 
Leviticus. Wellhausen 1 finds in it two distinct feast 
laws, which have been combined into one by the Re- 
dactor. One consists of vs. 9-22, 39-44, the wave- 
sheaf and wave-loaves and the supplementary state- 
ment respecting Tabernacles, all which depart from 
the Elohistic style ; on the contrary the remainder of 
the chapter is purely Elohistic. Hupfeld 2 throws out 
eleven more verses in addition to the preceding, viz., 
ver. 3, the law of the Sabbath, and vs. 23-32, the first 
and tenth days of the seventh month, and declares 
the verses thus sundered to be the ones which are 
Elohistic and of the same style with Gen. 17 and Ex. 
12. Knobel 3 thinks that all the chapter belongs to 
the Elohist except vs. 2, 3, the Sabbath law, vs. 18, 
19, 22, and vs. 39-44, the supplementary passage con- 
cerning Tabernacles, which were inserted by the Je- 
hovist from some document closely approximating 
that of the Elohist in style and language. 

Kayser 4 makes a still more elaborate dissection of 
the chapter. He agrees with Wellhausen in finding 

! " Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Theologie," XXII., p. 431 ft 

2 " De vera festorum ratione," Part II., pp. 7, 13. 

3 " Die Bucher Exodus und Leviticus," p. 530. 

4 " Das vorexilische Buch," p. 73. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



two distinct feast calendars in the chapter, though he 
differs from him in details. He assigns to the Elohist 
vs. 5-8, \\b the Passover, vs. 15^, \6a, 21 the feast 
of Weeks, and vs. 23-36 the festivals of the seventh 
month, together with the title and subscriptions vs. 
4> 37» 38, 44- The remaining verses are from a dif- 
ferent source and have special relation to the harvest, 
vs. 9-14*2 the sheaf of first-fruits at the beginning of 
harvest, vs. 15^, \6b-20 the new meat-offering of 
Pentecost at its close, ver. 22 the prohibition of 
gleaning, and vs. 39-43 Tabernacles as a thanks- 
giving for the harvest and vintage. He is not sure 
whether this latter calendar ever contained anything 
about the first day of the seventh month, or the day 
of Atonement ; but he is persuaded that in its original 
form it must have stated the times of the several 
feasts, as the seven weeks' interval between Pentecost 
and its predecessor is given, and Tabernacles is put in 
the seventh month ; it must, therefore, in consistency 
have mentioned the time of the Passover. It is obvi- 
ous to suggest to him that the very thing he misses 
and which the calendar must plainly have contained, 
is here given as the chapter stands. It is only his 
critical hypothesis which has separated what by his 
own confession belongs together. 

Reuss adopts substantially the same division ; only 
he separates the supplementary paragraph itself, vs. 
39-43, into two parts, assigning the last three verses 
to the Elohist, and attaching them to the preceding 
paragraph on the same subject, thus virtually giving 
up the whole dispute, so far at least as these verses 
are concerned. Kayser's dissection is so keen that 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



he splits sentences in two, and splices the alternate 
halves together into new sentences, which are as- 
signed to distinct writers, and thus he obtains a 
double law of the feast of Weeks. Dillmann, whose 
own critical knife has a very keen edge at times, pro- 
nounces his division and that of Knobel " arbitrary 
and impracticable/' And he objects to Wellhausen 
that neither of his feast calendars are complete ; one 
has no Pentecost, and the other no feast of Unleav- 
ened Bread, while expressions, which all critics affirm 
to be Elohistic, pervade those sections which he 
slices from the chapter to such an extent that no as- 
sumption of interpolations will meet the case. In 
Dr. Dillmann's judgment the chapter is a unit. 

Where leading critics are so utterly at variance, it 
might be presumptuous in an onlooker to offer an 
opinion. But the chapter certainly has the appear- 
ance of being constructed on a uniform plan, with all 
its parts not only in close mutual relation, but in ob- 
vious relation likewise to other portions of the legis- 
lation of the Pentateuch. The formula, "And the 
LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the 
children of Israel, and say unto them/' is used four 
times, vs. I, 9, 23, 33, to introduce the four principal 
sections of the chapter. There are two titles in ver. 
2 and ver. 4 respectively, and two subscriptions, vs. 37, 
38, and ver. 44, the last corresponding in form to the 
first title and the opening words, and thus marking the 
extreme limits of the entire chapter and of the calendar 
of sacred times which it contains. The first section 
of the chapter is divided into two parts by a second 
title, ver. 4, and the last section is also divided into 



296 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



two parts by the first of the two subscriptions, vs. 37, 
38, which answers to the second title ; and these em- 
brace between them the core of the entire calendar, 
the annual festivals so far as they stand related to the 
services of the sanctuary. 

Prior to this central portion and preceding the sec- 
ond title is the Sabbath law, ver. 2, which had its holy 
convocation, and could not be omitted from any com- 
plete calendar of the sacred times, and yet was not 
one of the annual festivals, nor did it stand in any 
exclusive relation to the sanctuary. It is described as 
"the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings/' It 
belonged appropriately to the chapter, therefore, and 
yet was distinct in character from the sacred times 
afterward to be described, which are accordingly pre- 
ceded by a fresh title, ver. 4. In like manner the 
feast of Tabernacles, to which the last section of the 
chapter is devoted, had two aspects, one of which had to 
do with the sanctuary, and the other not. The former 
is first described with its holy convocations and daily 
offerings, and is immediately followed by the sub- 
scription, vs. 37, 38, summing up this portion of the 
chapter, " These are the feasts of the LORD, which 
ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an 
offering made by fire unto the Lord/' etc. Then 
follows the other aspect of the feast in a special par- 
agraph, which could not properly have been included 
in the preceding, in which they are bidden to take 
boughs of goodly trees and dwell in booths during 
the celebration of the feast. 

Wellhausen further complains that this second par- 
agraph, relating to Tabernacles, has been interpolated 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



from the first; and he claims that when these inter- 
polations have been removed, the original contrariety 
of the two paragraphs plainly appears. He finds an 
interpolation in the opening words defining the time 
of the feast, " In the fifteenth day of the seventh 
month," which, he says, is inconsistent with what im- 
mediately follows, " when ye have gathered in the 
fruit of the land." According to the former the 
period of celebration was determined by the phase of 
the moon ; according to the latter, by the housing of 
the fruit-crop. The former is, therefore, not an origi- 
nal part of the text ; and this paragraph belongs to a 
time when the feast was held earlier or later according 
to the season; only, as is stated in ver. 41, it always 
fell somewhere within the limits of the seventh month. 

But the alleged contrariety in the opening clauses of 
ver. 39 is only an invincible proof of the perversity of 
Wellhausen's mode of interpretation. This imme- 
diate conjunction of a fixed day of the month with 
the phrase " when ye have gathered in the fruit of 
the land," shows in the clearest possible manner that 
the two are perfectly consistent, that the relation of 
the feast to the ingathering is not disturbed by the 
assignment of a definite date ; that the feast, to be agri- 
cultural, need not be movable ; and that the hypothe- 
sis, that in consequence of their agricultural character 
they must at first have been movable, and afterward 
linked to determinate days, is altogether without 
foundation. The last clause of ver. 41, "Ye shall 
celebrate it in the seventh month," is not vaguely 
meant, as though it gave intimation that this should 
be done at some period in the month, but on no fixed 



298 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



day year by year ; nor is it to be explained with Dill- 
mann as in tacit contrast with the eighth month, con- 
formably to his hypothesis that the usage varied in 
different parts of the land, but the legislator decides 
for the seventh. The real emphasis is on the num- 
ber, the seventh, the sabbatical, the sacred month. 
The stress laid upon this number appears from the 
fact that within the brief compass of four verses, it is 
stated four times that the observance lasted seven 
days, and twice that it was in the seventh month. 

Wellhausen finds another interpolation in the last 
clause of ver. 39, " on the first day shall be a Shab- 
batkon and on the eighth day shall be a Shabbathon'* 
He thinks it very extraordinary that the writer should 
announce that the feast was to be kept seven days, 
and then immediately proceed to speak of the eighth 
day of this seven days' feast. Throw out this clause 
and there will be at once perceived a discrepancy 
between this and the preceding paragraph. When 
this paragraph was written the eighth day had not 
yet been added to Tabernacles, which is never- 
theless spoken of in ver. 36. But he only succeeds 
in showing that this paragraph presupposes the pre- 
ceding, is built upon it, and can only be understood 
in connection with it. 

And the same thing appears in other respects like- 
wise. In ver. 34 this is called the feast of Taber- 
nacles ; no reason is given for the name that is here 
used for the first time. The feast has a different 
appellation in Ex. 23 and 34. This name does not 
recur in Num. 29: 12. It is found again in Deut. 
16: 13, but with no hint why it is so called. The 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



only explanation is furnished by the direction to 
" dwell in booths " or tabernacles, ver. 42. Further, 
the phrase, ver. 39, "when ye have gathered in the 
fruit of the land," is a plain allusion to the denomina- 
tion in Exodus " feast of ingathering," and marks it 
clearly as an agrarian festival, an aspect which had 
not been brought out in the preceding paragraph ; 
hence the occasion for supplementing it in this par- 
ticular here. Wellhausen thinks that the change of 
name from feast of Ingathering to feast of Taber- 
nacles w r as the initial alteration which paved the way 
for subsequently attributing to it a historical instead 
of an agricultural meaning. But this unlucky para- 
graph stands in his way once more ; for here we have 
the agricultural and the historical sense combined 
together, vs. 39, 43, showing that both were held at 
the same time and that no interval was needed to 
pass from one to the other. 

The further explanation of the mode of observing 
Tabernacles contained in this supplementary para- 
graph was, moreover, to be expected from the plan 
of the chapter. As was shown in a former lecture, it 
passes lightly over those sacred times as the Passover 
and the day of Atonement, whose peculiar services 
had been fully explained elsewhere ; it only alludes 
in a general way to the festal sacrifices, whose details 
were reserved for Num. 28, 29 ; and it enters into 
particulars respecting the feast of Weeks and the 
accompanying and preceding presentation of first- 
fruits, which had not been explained before. This 
method of treatment obviously required that in deal- 
ing with the third and greatest feast of the year, 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. > 



regarding which no particulars are given elsewhere, 
the general observations of vs. 34-36 should be sup- 
plemented by some fuller and more characteristic 
account of its celebration, such as is to be found in 
the concluding verses of this chapter. 

Hupfeld maintains that the boughs spoken of in 
ver. 40 were intended to be carried in festive proces- 
sion, and that Neh. 8: 15 quite misunderstands the 
purport of the injunction when it speaks of using 
them to make booths for the people to lodge in. 
But the directions to take the branches and to dwell 
in booths stand in very obvious relation ; and it is 
difficult to see why the branches might not be, as in 
actual fact they were, used for both purposes. 

That Neh. 8:17 does not oblige us to suppose that 
the feast of Tabernacles had never been observed be- 
fore the time of Nehemiah is plain, not only from 
previous mention of it at earlier periods of the his- 
tory, but from Ezra 3 : 4, where it is expressly said, 
that they kept the " feast of Tabernacles as it is 
written where this brief formula is only an abridg- 
ment of that which is used two verses before, " as it 
is written in the law of Moses, the man of God." 
Neither can the passage in Nehemiah mean that 
booths were then for the first time used in the cele- 
bration of this feast ; for the express reference to the 
time of Joshua implies that it had certainly been 
kept, as the children of Israel then kept it, in Joshua's 
days, — not Joshua the high priest, the contemporary 
and coadjutor of Zerubbabel, as J. D. Michaelis 
strangely fancied, but Joshua the son of Nun, the suc- 
cessor of Moses. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



The primitive character of this mode of celebrating 
has a further voucher in the name of the feast, Taber- 
nacles (jTOfc booths), which here finds its only expla- 
nation ; also in the usage of the vintagers to lodge in 
booths while gathering the fruit from which it is de- 
rived ; and in Hos. 12:9, which makes special allu- 
sion both to the manner of observing the feast and 
the historical association connected with it : "I that 
am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will 
yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles as in the days 
of the solemn feasts." 

The point of this passage in Nehemiah lies not so 
much in the thing done as in the manner of doing it. 
It is not that this action had not been performed be- 
fore since the time of Joshua, but they had not done 
so. The universality with which it was done, and the 
gladness, as is added immediately after, with which it 
was done, had no parallel since the days of Joshua, 
when all Israel were in tents and were rejoicing in 
the manifest presence of Jehovah among them and 
in their recently acquired possession of the land flow- 
ing with milk and honey. So the exiles who had 
lately returned from captivity and were now settled 
in the land of their fathers, assured of Jehovah's al- 
mighty protection and help, engaged with alacrity and 
unanimity in every requirement of the law, now fresh- 
ly expounded to them, and felt as though those early 
days of triumph and of joy had once again returned. 

The same allegation is also made in regard to 
Tabernacles as the other feasts, and with as little 
reason that there was a transition from the voluntary 
private thank-offerings customary in the early periods 



302 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, 



to public sacrifices rigidly prescribed, and which were 
an affair of the priests rather than of the people ; that 
the tithes and first-fruits of their oil and their wine 
became the legal due to the priests instead of a grate- 
ful gift to God, and hence no longer supplied material 
for a joyous meal of the offerer and his friends at the 
sanctuary. Thus religion, it is said, became more, 
and more separated from the affairs of daily life and 
from the occasions of pious gratitude which the 
changing seasons and the bountiful productions of 
the soil afforded. It lost its native warmth, its natu- 
ralness and spontaneous character, and became formal 
and cold, a mere matter of statute and rigid require- 
ment. It was symptomatic of the transition from 
ancient Israel to modern Pharisaic Judaism. 

How unfounded all this is we have already seen. 
The Priest Code of Leviticus and Numbers, which 
ordains the sacrifices to be offered day by day 
throughout each feast on behalf of the people, makes 
explicit provision at the same time for all the gifts 
and vows and free-will offerings, which the pious zeal 
of the people prompted them to present, Lev. 23 : 38, 
Num. 29 : 39. And it bids them rejoice before the 
LORD their God throughout the feast, Lev. 23 : 40, 
in terms very similar to those employed in Deut. 16. 
And that this combination of national and individual 
worship, of public sacrifice and private festivity and 
glad rejoicing before the LORD characterized these 
feasts down to the time of Solomon, and so on to 
the close of the Old Testament, is abundantly ap- 
parent from 1 Kin. 8 : 5, 62-64, Ezra 3:4, 5, Neh. 
3 : 10-12. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 303 



And in fact the common sanctuary of Israel, God's 
dwelling-place in Zion and the worship there main- 
tained, and the confidence there reposed, and the help 
thence experienced, so far from chilling the fervor of de- 
votion and leading to a cheerless and spiritless formal- 
ity, was the very spring and fountain of warm religious 
life and elevated aspirations and ardent devotion, as 
is apparent in the entire book of Psalms from first to 
last, which clusters about the one earthly habitation 
of the Most High, and places there all hope and 
draws thence every inspiration and stimulus. 1 " How 
amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts ; my 
soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the 
LORD ; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the 
living God." " As the hart panteth after the water- 
brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My 
soul thirsteth for God, for the living God ; when shall 
I come and appear before God?" " LORD, who 
shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy 
holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh 
righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart." 
f Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD ? and 
who shall stand in his holy place ? He that hath 
clean hands and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted up 
his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully. He shall 
receive the blessing from the LORD and righteousness 

from the God of his salvation Lift up your 

heads, O ye gates ; even lift them up, ye everlasting 
doors ; and the king of glory shall come in. Who is 

1 See the noteworthy article by Smend, " Ueber die Bedeutung 
des Jemsalemischen Tempels in der alttestamentlichen Religion/' 
in the " Studien und Kritiken," for 1884, pp. 71S ff. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



this king of glory? the Lord of hosts, he is the king 
of glory." " I was glad when they said unto me, 
Let us go into the house of the LORD. Our feet 
shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem, . . . . 
whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD 
unto the testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the 
name of the LORD." u O send out thy light and 
thy truth ; let them lead me ; let them bring me 
unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles. Then 
will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceed- 
ing joy ; yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O 
God, my God." " I cried unto the Lord with my 
voice and he heard me out of his holy hill." 

We hear a great deal from the critics about the 
centralization of worship proving the death-blow to 
the old religion of Israel and substituting a round of 
external formalities in place of true inward devotion. 
Let them explain then the book of Psalms, and trace 
the fervor of its enthusiasm, its pure, rapturous de- 
votion, its elevated and enlightened piety, to its 
source. It was the sanctuary on Zion which kindled 
it to a glow. What was there corresponding to it, 
that was ever produced in those local sanctuaries and 
that popular religion, of which we hear so much ? I 
do not now call attention to any argument derived 
from the Davidic origin of any of the Psalms, and 
the proof thus afforded of the unity of the sanctuary 
in the age of David. But dismissing all questions of 
date and authorship, look at the book as a whole, as 
the utterance of pious hearts in Israel, as the flower 
and the crown of Old Testament devotion. Accept, 
if you please, the critical conclusion, that the Psalms 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



are almost without exception post-exilic, and that all 
that we really know about them is that they formed 
the hymn-book of the second temple. This book, 
then, is not only contemporaneous with Ezra's alleged 
issue of the Priest Code, which we are told deadened 
and formalized the piety of Israel ; but it derives all 
its spring, gathers all its fervor, draws all its lofty 
and pure devotion from that centralized sanctuary 
and that centralized worship, which, as they tell us, 
this formal and stiffened code was the means of es- 
tablishing. 

Finally, it is claimed in regard to the feast of Tab- 
ernacles as to the others, that its observance at one 
central place of worship was unknown both to the 
older laws and to the earlier period of the history; 
that it was at first celebrated in local sanctuaries in 
various parts of the land, and only in the course of 
time came to be observed by all the people at one 
common centre. We have seen that this allegation is 
quite unfounded so far as concerns the Passover and 
the feast of Weeks. It is equally so in the case of 
the feast now before us. There is no implication in 
the law that it was ever to be observed in a variety 
of places ; there is no statement in the history that it 
ever was observed anywhere but at the common sanc- 
tuary ; and there is no recorded fact from which a 
different practice can with any reason be inferred. 
The injunction in Ex. 23 and 34 is the same in regard 
to all three of the annual feasts. Three times in the 
year all thy males shall appear before the LORD God ; 
and this not in various sanctuaries, in different houses of 
God, but in " the house of the LORD thy God." This 
20 



3 o6 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



house of God must have been where his altar was ; 
and his altar was to be where God would record his 
name, Ex. 20 : 24. So that this is coincident with the 
requirement in Deut. 16: 16: " Three times in the 
year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy 
God in the place which he shall choose." There is en- 
tire unanimity in all the laws upon this point. It is 
at the one house of God that all Israelites are annu- 
ally to appear and keep these sacred feasts. Or if a 
distinction is to be found in these commands, and the 
critical principle is to be pressed that each law is to be 
interpreted absolutely by itself and out of relation to 
every other law, the conclusion which would follow 
would be precisely the reverse of that which Well- 
hausen actually draws. In the Book of the Covenant 
and in Deuteronomy pilgrimages to the sanctuary are 
required at each of the annual feasts. In the Priest 
Code, in Leviticus and Numbers this requirement 
is not repeated ; it is simply taken for granted as al- 
ready known. But if no law is to be allowed to sup- 
plement another, the inevitable conclusion will be 
upon Wellhausen's own principles that originally the 
people kept the feasts at one common sanctuary, but 
after the exile this ceased to be the case. 

Wellhausen 1 undertakes to expound to us the 
course of things with regard to the autumnal feast of 
ingathering. The earliest notice of such a festival 
he finds in Judg. 9 : 27, where the idolatrous inhabit- 
ants of Shechem celebrate the completed vintage in 
the house of their god Baal-berith, and it is further 

1 "Geschichte Israels," pp. 96 £f. Prolegomena (Eng. Tr.), p. 
94 ff. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



alluded to in Jotham's parable, vs. 9, 13, which speaks 
of the fatness of the olive, " wherewith they honor 
God and man," and the " wine which cheereth God 
and man." Then in Judg. 21 : 19 ff., mention is made 
of a like annual festival in the vineyards of Shiloh, 
which though occurring in a narrative, that he thinks 
to be in the highest degree incredible, is nevertheless 
confirmed, 1 Sam. I : 3, by the yearly visit of Samuel's 
father to Shiloh. This occurred " at the return of 
days," ver. 20, an expression almost identical with that 
which is rendered "at the year's end," Ex. 34:22, 
the time of the autumnal festival. His inference is 
that instead of continuing to observe the feast in 
every different locality throughout the land, particu- 
lar centres began to form in the latter part of the 
period of the Judges, like Shechem and Shiloh, whose 
sanctuaries were rising into prominence, and drew 
pilgrims from the surrounding district. When She- 
chem became an Israelitish city, its new occupants 
neither abolished the sanctuary nor the Hillulim 
or vintage feast, which was habitually celebrated 
there. The great royal temples of a later time were 
still more widely influential. So that from the reign 
of Solomon this feast was held at Jerusalem in the 
seventh month, and at Bethel since Jeroboam proba- 
bly somewhat later in the season. This was then the 
only Panegyris or assembly of the whole people. The 
harvest feast may have been observed already, but 
only in small local circles. This distinction is reflected 
in Deuteronomy, according to which Tabernacles, 
although it theoretically had no precedence, was the 
only feast which was observed for the full week. 



3 o8 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



Pilgrims had to remain but one day at the sanctuary 
at Passover, and even this brief demand is more em- 
phatically inculcated than the other, showing that it 
was an innovation. 

But the idolatrous worship of Baal-berith has noth- 
ing to do with the feasts of Jehovah. There is noth- 
ing in the passage cited, nor in any other, to suggest 
that these latter were ever celebrated at Shechem. 
On the contrary express mention is made of the feast 
of the LORD in Shiloh. And although this is found 
in the last chapter of Judges, the fact there recorded 
belongs early in the history of this book, for Phinehas 
the grandson of Aaron was priest at the time, 20 : 28. 
Shiloh was the place where Joshua had set up the 
Mosaic tabernacle, Josh. 18: I, and where the house 
of God continued through the period of the Judges, 
Judg. 18:31, 19:18, down to the time of Samuel, 
when it still bore the name " tabernacle of the con- 
gregation/' I Sam. 2 : 22, a term never applied to any 
building but the sacred tent of Moses. To this wor- 
shippers gathered not from the surrounding region 
of Ephraim merely, but from all Israel, 1 Sam. 2 : 14; 
and it was God's habitation, the one divinely com- 
manded place of sacrifice for the entire people, where 
the one priesthood ministered that was chosen of God 
out of all the tribes of Israel to this service, vs. 27-29. 
The critics tell us that the passage last cited is an in- 
sertion by the Deuteronomic reviser, the only proof 
of which is that it flatly contradicts their whole hy- 
pothesis. We can not accommodate them in their 
very natural wish to rid themselves of its unwelcome 
testimony. They have appealed to the history, and 
by the facts of the history they must abide. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



The mention of 'the daughters of Shiloh' in par- 
ticular, Judg. 21 :2i, as dancing at the time of the 
festival, does not prove that it was only locally ob- 
served ; for apart from the fact that the represent- 
atives of the people there encamped would naturally 
plan to absolve their own daughters, which they had 
pledged themselves not to give in marriage to Ben- 
jamin, women were not required by law to come to 
the feasts, and they would be less likely to do so vol- 
untarily at this time of war than in ordinary years. 
It is observable, however, that the entire camp of 
Israel left the seat of war, came to Shiloh, 21 : 12, and 
remained there until after the feast, ver. 24. 

The next allusion to one of the religious feasts is at 
the dedication of Solomon's temple, which, in order 
that it might be a truly national celebration, was ap- 
pointed at the time of the feast of Tabernacles in the 
seventh month. The vastness of the assemblage on that 
occasion appears from the provision made for them 
by Solomon's sacrifice of two and twenty thousand 
oxen and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep, 
1 Kin. 8 : 63, comp. ver. 5. The ark of the LORD and 
the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy 
vessels that were in the tabernacle were deposited in 
the temple, which thus became heir of the exclusive 
sanctity that before had been vested in them. The 
* tabernacle of the congregation/ or more exactly ren- 
dered, 'tent of meeting/ is of course not the tent 
which David had pitched on Mount Zion for the tem- 
porary reception of the ark, which never bears this 
name, but the old Mosaic tabernacle of which this 
was a standing designation, and which, since the loss 



3 io THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, 

of its divine significance by the capture of the ark, 
had remained an empty shell at Nob and at Gibeon 
until now. 

All the meaning and impressiveness of the dedica- 
tion centred in the removal of the ark. " The elders 
of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of 
the fathers of the children of Israel, assembled unto 
king Solomon in Jerusalem," not to gaze upon and 
admire or even worship in the superb structure that 
he had reared, but "that they might bring up the ark 
of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, 
which is Zion," I Kin. 8: I. Before this ark on its 
sacred passage to its new abode " King Solomon and 
all the congregation of Israel that were assembled 
unto him were sacrificing sheep and oxen that could 
not be told nor numbered for multitude," ver. 5. 
This ark, the symbol and pledge of the divine pres- 
ence, contained "the two tables of stone, which Moses 
put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant 
with the children of Israel, when they came out of 
the land of Egypt," ver. 9. And when this ark had 
been set in its proper place, "the cloud filled the 
house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand 
to minister because of the cloud ; for the glory of the 
Lord had filled the house of the Lord," vs. 10, 11, 
as it had previously filled the tabernacle of Moses on 
its erection. Then spake Solomon, The LORD said 
that he would dwell in the thick darkness. I have 
surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place 
for thee to abide in forever, vs. 12, 13. Since the 
day that God brought forth his people Israel out of 
Egypt, he chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



to build an house that his name might be therein, 
ver. 16. And God had not dwelt in any house since 
the time that he brought up the children of Israel 
out of Egypt, but had walked in a tent and a taber- 
nacle, 2 Sam. 7 : 6. But now that he had given rest 
to his people on every side, I Kin. 5 : 3-5, Solomon 
had, in accordance with the promise divinely made 
to his father David, been permitted to build the house 
to the name of the LORD God of Israel, and he had 
set there a place for the ark. He expresses his amaze- 
ment that the God, whom the heaven and heaven 
of heavens could not contain, should condescend to 
dwell in this house which he had builded. And yet 
he prays, Let thine eyes " be open toward this house 
night and day, even toward the place of which thou 
hast said, My name shall be there, .... and hearken 
thou unto the supplication of thy servant and of thy 
people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place; 
and hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place, ,, 1 Kin. 
8 : 20 ff . 

Nothing can be plainer from the record than that 
this was to Solomon and to all Israel not one sanctu- 
ary among many, but the one sole sanctuary of the 
Most High ; and that its superior sacredness was not 
due to the greater magnificence of the structure, or 
its being at the royal residence, but to the presence 
of the ark and the consequent indwelling of the Lord 
of hosts. Of course the critics make free use of their 
knife upon this most damaging recital. The post- 
exilic writer of the book, they tell us, has transferred 
the superstitious reverence with which the temple 
came to be regarded in later days to the time of Sol- 



312 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



omon, when no such view was entertained. We chal- 
lenge them for their proof. There is absolutely none 
forthcoming, but that the plain letter of the history 
is at utter variance with their hypothesis. All the 
testimony that can be gathered from every source 
within reach tends one way and to one result, viz., 
that the temple was the one only legitimate sanctuary 
in Israel after Shiloh. There is not a syllable of con- 
tradiction or rebutting evidence from any quarter. 
But all must be discredited and set at nought be- 
cause, forsooth, it does not please the critics. 

Ah ! they say, but the high places were not done 
away even after the temple was built. Solomon's 
heart was in his old age turned away after other gods, 
I Kin. 11:4, 7, and he built an high place for Che- 
mosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the 
abomination of the children of Ammon. And in the 
reign of Rehoboam, 14:23, Judah built high places 
and stocked them with the various emblems of idol- 
atry on every high hill and under every green tree. 
And so Aaron and Israel made a golden calf at the 
foot of Sinai. And so Judas betrayed his Lord. 
There have been shameful apostasies and departures 
from truth and duty in every age. What does this 
prove except the corruption of human nature and 
the innate tendency of man to turn away from the 
holy God and the purity of his worship and service, 
which breaks out in the most unexpected quarters 
and the most humiliating manner ? Or will it be 
claimed that Solomon did not know but that Che- 
mosh and Molech were as much entitled to his service 
as Jehovah? If his transgression is to disprove the 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 313 

existence of the law which he so grossly violated, it 
is not the unity of Jehovah's sanctuary, but whether 
Jehovah was the God of Israel that is thus brought 
into question. 

Again we are reminded that the ten tribes kept 
their autumnal feast at Bethel, But this does not 
prove that Bethel was an equally legitimate sanctu- 
ary. We have a historical account of the establish- 
ment of this schismatical and idolatrous worship by 
Jeroboam, whose aim was to terminate the worship 
at a common sanctuary which had previously pre- 
vailed, lest a continuance of religious unity should 
cement again the lately ruptured political unity. 
With this view he set up the golden calves at Bethel 
and at Dan, and ordained a feast in the eighth month 
at Bethel, 1 Kin. I2:26ff. This account Wellhausen 
considers unreliable. Very naturally ; he is in the 
habit of bowing every witness out of court whose testi- 
mony is not to his mind. The critics tell us this was 
an ancestral sanctuary, where it had been the custom 
to worship Jehovah under the image of a young bull. 
We have the express statement of the historian on 
the one side, and the unsupported word of the critics 
on the other; which is to be believed? There is not 
a trace of this calf-worship in Israel from Aaron to 
Jeroboam ; not only no proof that such worship was 
considered lawful, but even their apostasies from God 
never took that form. It came from Egypt and was 
one of the fruits of Jeroboam's long sojourn in that 
country. 

If Bethel was a true sanctuary and the worship 
there lawful, why did Elijah offer his sacrifice designed 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



to reclaim the people from the worship of Baal not 
at Bethel, but at Carmel, which had no sacred associ- 
ation ? and upon an altar whose twelve stones were a 
protest against the schism and at an hour which cor- 
responded with the worship in the temple? And 
why, when his life was in peril from the rage of Jez- 
ebel, did he seek the LORD at Horeb, from whose 
summit the law had been proclaimed, not only, Thou 
shalt have no other gods before me, but, Thou shalt 
not make unto thee any graven image ? Why did 
not only Elijah denounce Ahab, who introduced the 
worship of Baal, but Elisha likewise repel Jehoram, 
who had abandoned Baal and clave to the golden 
calves, 2 Kin. 3 : 2 f., 13? and proceed to anoint Ha- 
zael to be a scourge to Israel, 1 Kin. 19: 15, 2 Kin. 
8:13? And why did Hosea speak with such con- 
tempt and abhorrence of the worship of the calves, 
8 : 5 f., 10: 5 f., 13:2, denounce their feasts as feasts 
of Baal, 2:13, point to Bethel as the very fountain- 
head of corruption and ruin, 10:8, 15, declare their 
kings to be self-appointed and void of divine sanc- 
tion, 8 : 4, and link all the hope of Israel's future to 
their return from both their false government and 
their false worship to seek the LORD their God and 
David their king, 3:5? Neither Bethel nor the calves 
find sanction anywhere. 

But it is claimed that while Tabernacles was ob- 
served at one common sanctuary at an early period, 
there is no evidence that this was the case with the 
other feasts likewise. Only one feast is spoken of at 
Shiloh, Judg. 21 : 19. Elkanah went up but once in 
the year, 1 Sam. 1 : 3 ff., and the same feast is men- 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



315 



tioned at the dedication of Solomon's temple, 1 Kin. 
8:2, and contrasted with the feast of Jeroboam, 12: 
32 ff. There could have been, it is argued, but one 
pilgrimage feast throughout this period ; the others 
must have been observed as yet at local sanctuaries 
throughout the land. But with the exception of 
Joshua's Passover the silence respecting it and the 
feast of Weeks in all this period is total. There is 
no record of their local observance, and no intimation 
of any such thing. Yet the most ancient laws, as the 
critics regard them, those which, we are told, govern 
the practice of this period, ordain three feasts and 
enjoin pilgrimages alike to each. Clearly, then, either 
the law existed without being observed, or the silence 
of the history does not disprove their observance. 
Either admission deprives the hypothesis of one of 
its main props. 

The Psalms of David recognize throughout but one 
sanctuary, that in Zion. Of their genuineness we 
have the proof drawn from their titles, corroborated 
in certain cases at least by strong internal evidence, 
as well as by general references to him as the " sweet 
Psalmist of Israel,'* 2 Sam. 23 : 1, and to his musical 
skill, 1 Sam. 16 : 16 ff. Amos 6 : 5, by the repetition of 
Ps. 18, in 2 Sam. 22, by his other poetic compositions, 
2 Sam. 1 : 17, ch. 23, and the association of music 
with public worship, Am. 5 : 23, Isa. 30 : 29, Jer. 33 : 
11, not to speak of the explicit testimony of the 
books of Chronicles. But it does not agree with the 
hypothesis to admit that any extant psalm can be 
referred to David. All are consigned to the period 
after the exile. 



316 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



What then do the prophets say? Hosea and Amos 
denounce the sanctuaries of Israel in unmeasured 
terms, Hos. 4 : 13, 15, 10 : 8, 15, Am. 3 : 14, 4:4, 
5 : 4, 5, 8 : 14. The former calls the feasts celebrated 
there feasts of Baal, Hos. 2:11, 13, and connects 
their true seeking of the LORD with a return to David 
their king, 3 : 5. Amos, 1 : 2, appeals to God's loud 
voice of judgment which was resounding from Zion 
and Jerusalem. Isaiah 29 : 1 (Heb.) speaks of the 
feasts as running their annual round in the city where 
David dwelt; of glad processions to celebrate the 
Passover in the mountain of the Lord, 30 : 29 ; of 
the LORD as coming down to fight for Mount Zion 
and defending Jerusalem, where are his altar fires, 
31 : 4, 5, 9 ; of Zion the city of our solemnities, which 
no foe can successfully assail, 33 : 20, 26 : 1, 10 : 32, 
where Jehovah dwells, 8 : 18, and reigns, 24 : 23, and 
is worshipped, 27 : 13, and presents brought from 
foreign lands to the place of the name of the LORD 
of hosts, the Mount Zion, 18 : 7, to which all nations 
shall one day flock in eager submission, 2 : 3, where 
he shall make to all people a feast of fat things, 25:6, 
and shall renew the pillar of cloud and smoke as the 
symbol of his presence and protection, 4:5, and 
vhose courts he claims as his own though trampled 
and profaned by unworthy worshippers, 1:12. 

The fact that Jerusalem, and not the high places 
of Israel, was to the very earliest prophets the true 
sanctuary of Jehovah, is undeniable ; and the critics 
have recourse to every evasion to break its force. 
They say it was not a preference of one sanctuary 
over others as such, but because of the corruptions 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



317 



that had gained a foothold in the latter. Dr. Robert- 
son Smith says it was not because the temple was in 
Jerusalem, but this was the capital of the kingdom, 
the seat of Jehovah's empire. But how entirely the 
ideas of a sanctuary and a royal residence were dis- 
sociated, appears from the fact that in the ten tribes 
these were never combined in the same locality. 
Smend 1 confesses that it is the sanctuary in Jeru- 
salem which the prophets exalt, but it is because 
they anticipate the overthrow of the ten tribes and 
the preservation of Judah. They stand or fall with 
their temples. And then the actual overthrow and 
desolation of the northern kingdom freed Jerusalem 
from its rivals; while the disastrous defeat of Sen- 
nacherib heightened the prestige of Jerusalem. But 
Smend precisely inverts the order of cause and effect. 
It was not the protection accorded to Jerusalem 
which made it Jehovah's dwelling; but because it 
was his chosen seat, his holy arm was made bare for 
its defence. Isaiah and Micah and Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel foretell the desolation of Jerusalem and its 
temple ; this does not in their eyes obscure the fact 
that it was the divine abode. Jehovah forsook Israel 
and he forsook Zion because of the iniquities prac- 
ticed there, but this did not annul the divine choice 
in the one case nor in the other. 

But Smend maintains that we can not infer from 
the predominance of the temple in the time of 
Isaiah and Amos that it possessed the same predomi- 
nance in the period preceding, because the Jehovistic 

1 " Studien und Kritiken," for 1884, " Ueber die Bedeutung des 
Jerusalemischen Tempels," p. 703. 



3i8 THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



narratives of Genesis which belong to that time, are 
framed with the view of exalting the sanctuaries at 
Bethel, Beersheba and elsewhere by mythical ac- 
counts of these spots being hallowed by divine mani- 
festations to the patriarchs or their offering worship 
there. They presuppose a period, therefore, in which 
these sanctuaries were held in honor and were re- 
sorted to and venerated by the pious. But how does 
it appear that these narratives belong to that period ? 
Because these sanctuaries were venerated then, and 
this would give rise to the stories. How does it 
appear that the sanctuaries were venerated at that 
time? Because that is when these stories originated. 
And thus they prove the stories by the sanctuaries 
and the sanctuaries by the stories in a perpetual 
circle. Why, then, does Hosea, who denounces the 
sanctuaries, admit the truth of these patriarchal nar- 
ratives, and even point his condemnation by it, 
12 : 4? The Bethel of Jacob has become a Bethaven, 
10 : 5, 8 ; the house of God is converted into a house 
of iniquity. 

The allegation that the patriarchal histories are 
sheer inventions is gratuitous and without the sem- 
blance of a foundation. It was the sanctity given to 
these places by patriarchal reminiscences, which led 
to their selection by idolaters for their unauthorized 
worship. The history determined their choice of 
sanctuaries ; the sanctuaries did not produce the his- 
tories any more than Bunker Hill monument origi- 
nated the story of the battle which opened the Amer- 
ican Revolution. 

The ark, Smend tells us, lost its prestige after its 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, 319 

capture by the Philistines ; and hence its long seclu- 
sion until the victories of David brought it once more 
into notice and restored it to popular favor. The 
ease with which the critics create their facts is amaz- 
ing. The history knows of no such loss of prestige. 
It was not that the ark had ceased to be regarded as 
a power, that it suffered this long neglect; but be- 
cause its power spread only consternation and dis- 
may. The inflictions upon the Philistines compelled 
its return to Bethshemesh. The infliction upon the 
men of Bethshemesh compelled them to send it away. 
It was armed with terror and destruction, and their 
despairing cry was, Who is able to stand before this 
holy LORD God ? and to whom shall he go up from 
us? 1 Sam. 6:20. It may be said that this is all 
legend and superstition. Nevertheless it shows in 
what esteem the ark was held in Israel ; and that the 
reason of its long seclusion was not contempt, but 
apprehension. 

The withdrawal of the ark from the tabernacle de- 
prived Israel for a season of the manifested presence 
of Jehovah. It was a time of the affliction of God's 
habitation and the curtailing of the blessings which 
it brought to Israel, 1 Sam. 2 : 32 marg. The law of 
the unity of the sanctuary necessarily lapsed with the 
cessation of the sanctuary itself, Samuel as God's 
accredited messenger assumed the functions of the 
degenerate priesthood, built an altar at his own house 
in Ramah, 6:17, and offered sacrifices at Mizpeh, 
7 : 9, Gilgal, 10 : 8, 11 : 15, and Bethlehem, 16 : 2. The 
people went up to God at Bethel, 10 : 3, where he 
had met with Jacob, and sought him elsewhere as 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



they were able, just as the pious in the ten tribes 
did at a later period under a like necessity when de- 
barred from attendance at the legitimate sanctuary, 
I Kin. 18:30, 19:14. The persuasion that the 
breach between Jehovah and his people was at 
length at an end and that Jehovah's dwelling was 
once again to be established in the midst of his 
people, was the secret of that enthusiastic joy with 
which the entire nation hailed the advent of the ark 
to Zion, 2 Sam. 6:15. 

And here it may be remarked, by the way, that the 
ark affords a fresh indication of the weakness of the 
argument from silence, which figures so largely in 
critical reasoning. The ark is not once mentioned 
or referred to by any of the prophets with the excep- 
tion of a single passage in Jeremiah, 3 : 16. Hosea 
nowhere alludes to it, nor Amos, nor Isaiah, nor any 
of their contemporaries. It is not spoken of by 
Ezekiel nor by any of the prophets after the exile. 
It is nowhere spoken of in the Psalms with the 
single exception of Ps. 132 : 8 ; comp. 2 Chron. 6 : 41 ff. 
How natural the inference on critical principles that 
the ark was first made in Jeremiah's days or that it 
was never made at all. And yet, even though the 
statements of the books of Joshua and Chronicles 
.respecting it were discredited, its existence, its 
supreme and awful sanctity and its Mosaic origin are 
attested by Judges, Samuel and Kings. And as 
there never was more than one ark, this is of itself a 
demonstration that there was but one legitimate 
sanctuary from the days of Moses. And how can 
the Priest Code, which so exalts the ark and makes it 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



the central and most venerated object in the sanc- 
tuary, that in fact which constitutes it the dwelling- 
place of Jehovah, be attributed to the period after 
the exile when the ark was no longer in existence 
and the sanctuary of Israel was destitute of any such 
symbol of the divine presence ? If this was the in- 
vention of Ezra, what design can he have had in it 
but that of bringing the second temple into disrepute 
from its lack of that which constituted the glory of 
the Mosaic sanctuary, and thus degrading the ritual 
which he was so bent upon exalting ? 

But even after the ark was restored and the temple 
was built, the critics tell us that there is no trace of 
its exclusive sanctity in the Books of Kings, except 
in the passages which simply reflect the opinions of 
the post-exilic writer. And how are we to distinguish 
these passages ? They are those which declare the 
temple's exclusive sanctity ; so that here we have the 
same vicious circle infecting the reasoning again. 
And so it is constantly. The hypothesis is always 
and evermore proved by the hypothesis ; and it has 
no other basis. 

Gentlemen of Newton Theological Insti- 
tution : The task which you assigned to me is ac- 
complished. The long and weary road over which 
we have been travelling together is now ended. I 
thank you for the patience with which you have 
listened to this often tedious discussion. We have 
not knowingly shunned any point that our antago- 
nists have raised. I think that we may say after a 
fair examination that the hypothesis of Wellhausen 
21 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 



finds no support in the sacred feasts. It is one of its 
main defences ; but it is worth nothing. No gradual 
growth of these institutions is attested by the laws. 
The alleged corroboration from the history is alto- 
gether illusive. The entire ritual legislation bristles 
with points which have been in like manner perverted 
to the defence of this hypothesis and with just as 
little reason. Critical studies should not be shunned 
nor despised because of this perversion. The serpent 
before which Moses fled in alarm, became a rod of 
power in his hand, when he boldly seized it by the 
tail. The cloud may be black with tempest, and 
vivid flashes leaping from its bosom awaken conster- 
nation in the timid ; but the electrical discharges will 
prove harmless if the cloud be pierced by a suitable 
conductor, and that which seemed so threatening will 
but yield a copious and refreshing shower. 



INDEX. 



PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE QUOTED OR REFERRED TO. 



GENESIS. PAGE 

i :i4 I 7 2 

2:4 J 5i 

2:7 x 34 

6 : 22 137 note 

7:5 T 37 note, 138 

7:9 137 n <>te, 138 

7 : 13 x 35 136 

7 : 16 137 

14 : 19, 20 170 

14:21 J 34 

15 : 18 109 

ch. 17 293 

17:7 I 3 I 

17 : 12 213 

17 : 12, 13, 23, 27 132 

17 : 12, 27 132 

17:14 x 3i 

17 : 23, 26 135 note, 136 

18 : 6 199 

18 : 19 161 

19 : 3 J 99 

21 : 4 137 

21 : 22, 32 135 

23:17 T 4 6 

24 :3 2 170 

26 : 26 135 

3o:33 I 45 

43:28 146 

45 : 18 183 note 

47:12 133, 134 

EXODUS. 

3 : 2i, 22 119 

4:23 112 

4:29-31 97 n?te 

6:1 147 

6:6 134 7iote 

6 : 10-12 119 

6:26 135 

6:28-30. 119 

7:2 113 bis 

7:4— H3, 134 note, 135 



PAGE 

7:4, 5 "3 

7:6 137 note, 138 

7 : 10, 20 137 note 

7:i4 "3 

7 : 16 113 

8:1 113 

8:2 113 

9:1 lx 3 

9:2 113 

9:25 135 

9:35 J 40 

10:2 161 

10 : 20 140 

10 : 28, 29 112 

ch. 11 112 

11 :2, 3 119 

11 : 4 112, 113 

11 : 4 ff 107, no 

11 :4> 5 no 

11 : 4-8 96 

11 : 5 147 bts 

11 : 9, 10 116 

11 : 10 113 

ch. 12. . . 90, 92, 94, 103 dz's, 116, 

181, 185, 228, 236, 293 
ch. 12, 13. . 86, 89, 158, 159, 165, 

183, 195, 207, 238, 262 
12:1 95, 144, 156 

12 : 1-13 88, 90 note 

12 : 1-28 45, H7 

12 : 2 117, 142, 159 

12:3 no 

12 : 4 95, 133 ot' s > T 33 note 

12 : 4, 15, 16, 19 134 

12 : 6 131 

12 : 7, 12, 13 97 

12 : 8 53, 9°, i° 8 

12 :8-n 117 

12 : 9 218 

12 : 10 no, 114, 183 

12 : 11 53, 107, 120, 192, 195 

12 : 11-13 114 

(323) 



324 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES. 



12 : 17. . 

12 : 18. . 
12 : 19. , 



12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 

12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 
12 



12 
12 
12 
12 



PAGE 

: 12. . . . no, 112 bis, 134, 134 

note, 135, 160 

: 12 f .... 122, 147 

: 12, 23 120 

: 12, 29 -113 

: 13 "4, 145, i9 2 

: 14 114, "5, 120, 133 

: *4, *7 I3 1 

: 14-20. ...88, 90, 90 note, 109, 

114, 115, 117, 140 

: 15 94, 108, 114, 120, 200 

: 15-20 103 

: 16. . . . 104 bis, 131, 217, 226, 

252, 266 
109, no, in, 114, i2o l 

135 bis, 160 
94, 103, 144, 210, 2ii, 213 
106, 114, 120, 131, 132, 

160, 200 

20 96, 114, 131 

21 97, 146, 195 

21-23 • 96 

21-27 88, 0, 117 

22 108, no 

22 b, 23 97 

23 96, H3, 145, 192 

23, 27, 29 147 

24 133, 218 

24-27 95 

25, 26 145 

25 ff 160 

27 97, 144, 146, 192 

28.. 88, (fibis, 118, 120, 135, 

137 note ) 139 bis, 141 

29 96, no, 144, 147 

29 122 

29, 30 118 

29-42 88 

3 1 H2 

31-33 H3, H8 

31, 42 no 

34-3° 118 

34, 39 90, 107, 108, 115 

35, 3°. 119 

37 120, 146 

37 11S, 120 

37^,33 118 

38 146 

39 53, 11S, 120 

40 144 

4c, 41 118 

40-42 90 note 

41 . . 114, 115, 119, 135 bis, 160, 206 

41. 5i no 

42 90, 92, 114 bis, 118, 227 

43 131 



PAGE 

12 : 43-49 90 note, 95, 106, 118 

12 :43-5o 117 

12 :43-5i 45, 89 

12:44 T32 

12 : 46 95 

12 : 48 228, 267 

12 148, 49 95, 132, 160 

12 : 50 135, 137 note, 139, 140 

12 : 50, 51 90 note 

12 : 51 119, 135 bis, 160 

ch. 13 92, 94, 95, 103, 171, 217 

13:1,2 89 

13 : 1-16 90, 90 note 

13 : 2 95, 135 

13:3 t 44 

13 :3, 4 209 

13:3-6 98 

13 : 3-io 45, 89, 103, 181, 184 

13 -'3, 14 145 

13 : 3, 14, 16 147 

13 :3- 10 117, 161 

13 *-4 94, no, 144, 206 

13 : 5 145 (4 times), 160 

13 : 6 9 1 , IQ 4, 215, 216, 252 

13:7 146 

13 : 9 147, 161 

13 : 9, 10 161 

13 : 11 145 

13 : 11-16 89 

13 : 12 160 

33:12,13 95 

13:14 145 

13 : 15 135, 144, 160 

13:17 120 

13:18 135 

14 : 19, 20 135 

16 : 16, 18 133 note, 134 

16 : 23 270 

16 : 23 ff 104 

16 : 34 * 137 note 

16 : 36 254 note 

17:1 131 

ch. 19-24 66 

19 : 7, 8 97 note 

ch. 20 168, 169 

ch. 20-24 T7 

20 : 2 145, 197 

o : 24 223, 306 

20 : 24, 25 18, 33 

20 : 25 34 

ch. 21-23 ID 5, I ^8 

21 : 13, 14 18 

21:14 33 

22 : 5, 6 18 

22 : 29 18 

22 : 29 f 104 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES. 



PAGE 

22 130 19, 24, l8o, 188 

ch. 23... 165-168, 170, 182, 196, 

205, 207, £09, 231, 232, 247, 
273, 274, 282, 287 - , 289, 298, 305 

23 : 10, 11 18 

23 :i4 144, 182 

23 : 14-19 46 

23 : 15. . . . 91, 104, 157, 167, 180, 

182, 195, 206, 244 

23 : i5» 16 2 44 

23 : 16. . 18, 66, 74, 160 note 1 182, 

186, 243, 245, 246, 258, 279 

23 : 17 182 

23 : 17-19 167, 182, 184 

23 : 18 91, 115, 182, 219 

23:19 33) 182, 223, 272 

24 : 4 158 

ch. 25-40 17 

ch. 32-34 17 

32 : 15 270 

ch. 34 18, 165-170, 182, 196, 

205, 207, 209, 231 f , 247, 273 f , 

282, 288 f, 298, 305 

34:i 169 

34 : 4 *37 note 

34 :9i 10 I 70 

34-*"ff 167 

34 : 14-26 168 7iote 

34 : 18. . . . 91, 144, 157, 167, 181, 

183, 195, 206, 244 bis, 245 

34 : 18-20 104 

34:18-26 46 

34 : 19-21 244 bis 

34 : 22. . . 160 note, 243-245, 258, 

279, 2 87, 307 

34 :25 9h 9 s , JI 5, 181, 183 

34 : 26 223, 272 

34 :27 158, 169 

34:28 169 

35 : 2 270 

35:2f 104 

35 : 3 131 

38 : 22 137 note 

39:1, 5, etc 137 note 

39:32 138 

39 : 32,43 137 note 

39 : 42 137 note 

39:42, 43 J 39 

40 : 16 137 note, 138, 139 

40 : 19, 21, etc 137 note 

LEVITICUS. 

ch. 1-7 174 

2 : 11 199 

2 : 12 , 199 

3:14 199 



PAGE 

3^7 131 

4^5 146 

7:26 131 

7:38 156 

ch. 8-10 174 

8:4.. 137 note 

8 : 9, 13, etc 137 note 

8 : 22 ff , , 200 

8 136 137 note 

9:1 146 

9 : 10 137 note 

ch. 11-16 174 

12 13 213 

ch. 16 158, 262 

16 : 31 270 

16 : 34 137 note 

ch. 17-20 176 

ch. 17-26 176 

ch. 18-20 176 

ch. 18-23, 25, 26 176 

19:2. 174 

19 : 9, 10 264 

22 : 25 132 

ch. 23... 46, 144, 158, 165, 171, 

174, 181, 185, 226 f, 236, 260 f, 

263, 272 f , 283 
ch. 23, 24, 25, 26 176 

23:1, 9, 23, 33 295 

23 : 2 295 

23 :2, 3 203 

23:3 270, 293 

23 : 3, 14, 21, 31 *3* 

23 : 4, 37, 38, 44 294, 295 

23:5 267 

23 :5, 6 211 

23 : 5-8, 14 b 294 

23 : 6 211, 267 

23 : 7 104, 270 

23 :7, 8 217 

23 : 8 266, 270 

23 : 9 ff 186 

23 : 9, 10 253 note, 263 

23 : 9-140 294 

23 :9-i4 201 

23 : 9-22 260, 262, 293 

23 : 10 199, 246', 261 

23 : 10, 11 254 note 

23 : 11 104, 270, 271 

23 : 14 199, 265, 267 

23 : 14, 21, 2&-30 135 note, 136 

23:15 260 

23 : 15 ff 264 

23 : 15, 16 263 

23 : is a, 16 a, 21 294 

23 : 15 b, 16 b, 20 294 

23 : 16 261, 272, 281 



326 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES. 



PAGE 

17 199, 246, 254 note 

18, 19, 22 293 

22 264, 294 

23-3 2 293 

23-36 294 

270 
269 
298 
291 
300 



23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
23 
24 
Ch. 
25 
2,5 
25 
25 
25 
25 
25 
ch. 
2 j 

25 
27 
2'/ 
27 

NUMBERS. 

ch. 1-10 17 

1 : 19 137 note 

1 : 54 137 note, 139 

2 :33 137 note 

2 : 34 137 note, 139 

3 : 13 104, 110, 120, 160 

3 : 42, 5 1 T 37 note 

4 :49 137 #0** 

5:4 137 139 

8:3 137 note 

8 : 17 104, 11 d, 120, 160 

8 : 20 137 note, 139 

8 : 22 137 note 

ch. 9 181, 185 

9: iff 158, 178 

9-*i-^4 165 



24. 39 

32 

34 

34 ff 

34-36 

36 214, 226, 298 

3 6 , 39 291 

37, 38 203 

38 220, 302 

39 297, 29S, 299 

39, 4i 73, 281 

39, 43 299 

39-43 293, 294 Ms 

39-44 293 bis 

40 3^, 302 

41 297 

42 299 

43 284 

23 137 note 

25 263 

:i 156 

: 1, 2 263 

:2, 4, 6, 8 270 

:S 270 

:8 263 

: 9, 10, 22 160 note 

133 

26 175 

• 34, 35, 43 270 

:46 156 

:i6 133 

:23 133 

:34 156 



PAGE 

9:5 137 note 

9:5-14 46 

9 : 11 232 

9 : 11, 12, 14 15S 

9^7 133 

10:11 185 

11 : 21 146 

14:8 145 

14 :28 145 

ch. 15-19 17 

15 '3^ T 37 note 

17:11 137 note, 139 

18 : 17, 18 202 

20 : 9 137 7ioie 

20 : 27 137 note 

ch. 25-36 17 

26:54 133 

27:7, 8 161 

27 : 22 137 note 

ch. 28.. 172, 181, 185, 220, 226, 

235 f, 272 f 
ch. 28, 29. . 46, 144, 165, 177, 207, 

263, 283, 299 

28 : 16, 17 211, 274 

28:17 211 

28 : 10, 25 217 

28 : 19 ff 190 

28 : 26. . . 243, 260, 264, 272, 281, 282 

28 : 35 214 

29 : 12 ff 291, 298 

29 : 35 226, 291, 292 

29 : 31 19°, 220, 302 

31 : 7, 41, 47 137 note 

31 : 28, 37-41 133 

3 1 : 3i *37 note 

33:3 IIO > 268, 269 

33 : 4 I2 o, 134 note 

33:5 120 

33^7 131 

33 : 44 146 

ch. 3h 35 146 

35:i 156 

35:29 131 

36 : 10 137 note 

36:13 J 56 

DEUTERONOMY. 

ch. 5. 168 

5:i5 47 

5 : 23 97 note 

12 : 1-8 20 

12:5 34 

I2:8f 179 

I2:9f 34 

12:15,21. 23 

12 : 19 23 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES. 



PAGE 

14:23 284 

14 : 23-26 24 

15 : 19, 20 24, 104, 202 

15 : 20 184 

ch. 16. . . . 54, 178, 209, 217, 232, 

247, 282 f, 302 

16:1 104, 115, 143 f, 206, 228 

16 : 1, 2 . 185 

16 : 1, 3, 8 106 

16 : 1-8 159, 181 

16:1-17 46 

16 : 2 103, 193 

16:2ft 213 

16 :$ 195, 200 

16 : 4, 8 211 

16:7 94, 212, 214 f, 219 

16:7, 8 105 

16 : 8 226, 252 

16 : 9 186, 201, 271 

16 : 9, 10 246, 258 

16 : 10 243, 272 

16 : 12 257 

16 :i3 279, 299 

16 : 14 284 

16:16 306 

18:6-8 23 

24 : 8 179 

26 : 5-10 280 

26 : S-10 197 

27:5,6 34 

31 : 9, 24 159 

32 : 14 183 note 

3 2 : 48 135 note, 136 

34 : 9 137 note 

JOSHUA. 

1 : 15 268 

3:i5 267 

5:1 268 

5 : 10 230 

5 135 f, 199, 267, 269 f 

10 : 27 136 

10 : 28 ff 134 

10 : 40 137 note 

n :" 134 

11 : 15 137 note 

14 : 5 137 note 

18:1 35, 308 

!9:5i 35 

21 : 8 137 note 

ch. 22 35 

24:5^ 197 

24:17 145 

JUDGES. 

2:i IQ7 

6 : 8 ff 197 



PAGE 

6 : 19 199 

9 : 9> *3 3-37 

9 : 2 7 225, 2S4, 306 

18 : 31 35, 30S 

19 : 18 35, 30S 

20 : 28 308 

21 : 12, 24 309 

2i :i9 35, 65, 307, 314 

21 : 21 309 

RUTH. 

2:i4 199 

1 SAMUEL. 

i:3 S^, 65, 307 

1:3^ 314 

i : 4 ff 219 

1 : 20 307 

1:24 36 

2 : 14 3 6 , 230, 308 

2 : 15 218 

2 : 22 36, 308 

2 : 27-29 308 

2 : 28, 29 36 

2 : 32 319 

4:4 36 

6:17 3i9 

6 : 20 319 

7:9 3i9 

8:4,7 97 

10:3 319 

10:8 319 

11 :i5 319 

16 : 2 319 

16: 16 ff 315 

30 : 16 281 

2 SAMUEL. 

1:17 315 

3 : 10 161 

5 :i, 3 97 note 

6:15 320 

7:6 311 

11 : 1 160 note 

17 : 4, 14, 15 97 note 

19 : 11, 14 97 note 

ch. 22 315 

ch. 23 315 

23:1 3i5 

I KINGS. 

3:2 37 

5:3-5 • 3ii 

6:1, 38 142 

6 : 38 290 

8:1, 5, 9, etc ......... 310 

8:2 73, 142, 232, 281, 290, 315 



328 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES. 



PAGE 

8 :s 302» 309 

8 : 16-21 37 

8:2011 311 

8 : 62-64 3 02 

8:63. 309 

8:65 73, 247, 281, 2S6, 290 

8 : 66 292 

9^5 273 

11 :4, 7 312 

11:7,8 ... 37 

12 : 16 215 

12:26ft 313 

12 : 28 197 

12 : 32. ... 73, 225, 281, 287, 290, 315 

12:32, 33 232 

14:23 37, 312 

18 : 26 191 

18:30 320 

19 : 10, 14 37 

19:14 320 

19 : i5 3M 

20 : 22, 26 160 note 

21 : 11 97 note 

2 KINGS. 

3:2f, 13 314 

4 : 23 65 

8:13 314 

10 : 20 227 

12 : 16 275 note 

16:3 161 

22 : 3 160 

ch. 23 232 

23 : 1, 2 97 note 

23 : 9 54 bis 

23 :2i, 22 228, 232 

23:21-23 231 

23 : 22 54, 229 

23:23 160 

1 CHRONICLES. 

11 : i, 3 97 note 

16 : 7 232 

23:31 °5 

2 CHRONICLES. 

5:3.. 73 

6 : 41 ff 320 

7 : 8, 9 73 

7:9 202 

7 : 10 281 

8 : 12, 13 273 

8 : 13 230 

10 : 16 215 

15 : 10, 12 258 

29 : 21-24 275 note 



PAGB 

29 '3° 232 

ch. 30 229, 230 

3° : 10 230 

30 : 15 232 

30 : 16 f 217 

30:23 247 

30 : 26 230 

35 : 1 232 

35 : 7-9 185, 190 

35 : 11 217 

35 : 13 218 

35 : 18 230 

EZRA. 

3:4 300 

3:4, 5 3- 2 

6 :19ft 231 

NEHEMIAH. 

3 : 10-12 302 

8:14 73, 281 

8:15 300 

8 :i7 293, 300 

8:18 292 

PSALMS, 

18 315 

4c : 6 275 note 

42 :4 227 

63 : 5 1 S3 note 

81 232 

81:3 73 

8i:3-5 233 

Si : 16 183 note 

95:n 47 

104:14, 15 279 

132 37 

132:8 320 

ISAIAH. 

1 : 12 316 

1 : 13 226 

2:3 316 

4o 226, 316 

8:18 316 

10:32 316 

11 : 15, 16 197 

18 : 7 316 

24:23 316 

25:6 316 

26 : 1 316 

27 : 13 ?i6 

29 : 1 65, 226, 316 

30:29 65, 115, 227, 3.5 f 

3i:4, 5, 9 3i6 

3i : 5 192, 22S 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES. 



329 



PAGE 

33 : 20 * 22 7> 316 

37 : 30 160 note 

53 : 10 275 note 

JEREMIAH. 

31 138-40. 237 

33:n 315 

36 : 22 160 note 

EZEKIEL. 

2:3 135 note 

24 : 2 135 note 

34 : 3 l8 3 note 

40 : 1 135 note 

4 o :39 275 

45:!8ff 234 

45:20 264 

45 *- 21 2II » 2 74 

45:21-24 231 

45: 2 5 73, 281 

HOSEA. 

2 : 11 65, 316 

2:13 3i4i 316 

3:5 3i4, 316 

4:8 275 ?iote 

4:i3, 15 3i6 

8:4 314 

8:5* 3*4 

9:1 210 

10:5* 3i4 

10:5, 8 318 

10 : 8, 15 314, 316 

11 : 1 197 

12:4 -.318 

12:9 301 

12:9, 13 197 

13:2 314 

13:4 197 

JOEL. 

i : 14 . . 227 

2 : 15 227 



PAGE 

AMOS. 

1=2 316 

2 : 10 197 

3:i 197 

3:14 310 

4:4 316 

5 :4i 5 316 

5 : 21 227 

5:23 315 

6:5 3*5 

8 : 14 3*6 

ZECHARIAH. 

2 *-4 2 37 

MATTHEW. 

17:1 2 i3 

26 : 17 212 

28 : 1 271 

MARK. 

9 : 2 213 

LUKE. 

6:i 265, 271 

9: 28 213 

18 : 12. 271 

JOHN. 

5:i,39 258 

7 *-37 281, 292 

11 : 49 ff 60 

18:39 61 

20 : 26 213 

ACTS. 

12:2 60 

I CORINTHIANS. 
5:8 200 

JOSEPHUS. 

Antiq. iii. 10, 6 243 

Antiq. xiii. 8, 4 265 



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